Can I create habit without routine?

lieajane
lieajane Posts: 78 Member
edited November 13 in Getting Started
Since I was here last, probably around a year ago, I've suffered a bout of depression, resulting in my changing jobs. Last time round, I managed to lose a stone, gain lots of strength and create some enviable glutes and abs, not to mention, clear skin, sparkly eyes, and the stamina of Pheidippides.
I did this by creating habit, based around my stable 9-6 job and weekends off. Two evenings a week, I'd go straight to the gym and workout, come home, down a protein shake and cook off enough chicken and broccoli for dinner and breakfast. I'd add variety at lunch time, when most days I'd buy myself something healthy for lunch.
Unfortunately, I found myself desperate to get out of the situation and after a while off sick, took a job in hospitality.....which means, not only do I work very varied hours, but I'm constantly around food and drink, and constantly encouraged to try all of it. We also get any food that hasn't been served for our staff meals, and if we're still hungry, there's a shelf full of chocolate bars, crisps and other junk food, just for staff to eat - just grab whatever you feel like when you're hungry, bored, annoyed, upset, tired, have sore feet, what ever.
There are no set shifts - it's a wedding venue, so we work according to the needs of the couple......very rarely do two weddings run to the same schedule, I might work in the evening, on the bar, through the night setting up, early in the morning for breakfast, during the day and early evening serving food, or a combination thereof. Also, it's pretty low paid, so sometimes, what's on offer at work is all I can afford to eat (we just won an award for our food.....I know, poor me, right!
I really feel the need to create my healthy habit again, I'm so ashamed of how I've let myself go, after all the work I put in, but I can't seem to make it stick without the rigid routine I had before. Please help?

Replies

  • leanjogreen18
    leanjogreen18 Posts: 2,492 Member
    You can make your own routine. Usually you will know the days if not next few days schedule correct? So set your reminders on your phone to notify you during your time off or your scheduled breaks.

    As for the food first off YAY for free food! Second just fit them into your days calories, choose some of the lower calorie foods most of the time and save for some of the higher calorie foods.

    When you want this really bad you will make up your mind not to let anything interfere.
  • azulvioleta6
    azulvioleta6 Posts: 4,195 Member
    My schedule is wacky too.

    At the beginning of each week, I look at my printed calendar and plan out my exercise. Sometimes things change a bit as the week goes on, but having a plan keeps me active at least six days a week.

    It can be done.
  • fr33sia12
    fr33sia12 Posts: 1,258 Member
    I have to have some sort of routine, even if it changes day by day. In the evening I'll plan what I'll do the next day, when I'll exercise and what I'll eat. I'm like this whether I'm trying to lose weight or not, so I'm used to it. When I've planned what I'm going to eat that day, I very rarely go "off plan" so if there's junk food on offer I find it easier to say no knowing what I'm eating that day.
  • Adc7225
    Adc7225 Posts: 1,318 Member
    I feel for you, I know I do so much better with a consistent schedule. Thinking about your situation, maybe if you had a step tracker that could be one thing to work with to see just how active you are on a daily basis and when you see that you might need to get in a power walk or something this lets you really see your activity level for the day. Now, the food thing, you might need to get some snack food that you can bring with you and avoid the job snacks. As far as tasting of the various food items maybe try getting the smallest plate/saucer and limiting how much you will taste to what fits on the plate. If you don't have any small plates then just visualize 1/3 or so of the plate that's allowed to be filled and eaten. I'm assuming you will be guessing the calorie count for these tastings and that's okay. Also, as most of us can attest to this - don't share what you are doing, though they may see your change in eating just offer some excuse about it try not to discuss losing weight :)
  • lieajane
    lieajane Posts: 78 Member
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Yes you can. All you need to do is create habit around mini routines. Instead of having a time based routine have a condition based routine in the simple form of "if...then". For example: if i'm not hungry then no eating, or if I had cake then I can't have a candy bar, if work starts in an hour then I need to get in a quick workout if possible, if I'm close to my work place get out of the car and walk the rest of the way...etc. It doesn't have to be these exact things, but a habit can be created when there is a condition to trigger it regardless of time.

    Great idea!
    I had toyed with the idea of creating a routine like I'd code a website, but I haven't quite been able to join it up. (And it's been so many years since I had to do anything like that so I'm not even sure I remember how!)
    Amusedmonkey, do you program your time like this? If so, please tell me more? What conditions do you use? Do you associate a reward with each action? Did you feel the need to write it down and if so, how and where?
    ....I may take this over to NF to see if I can find more insight there.
  • lieajane
    lieajane Posts: 78 Member
    Adc7225 wrote: »
    I feel for you, I know I do so much better with a consistent schedule. Thinking about your situation, maybe if you had a step tracker that could be one thing to work with to see just how active you are on a daily basis and when you see that you might need to get in a power walk or something this lets you really see your activity level for the day. Now, the food thing, you might need to get some snack food that you can bring with you and avoid the job snacks. As far as tasting of the various food items maybe try getting the smallest plate/saucer and limiting how much you will taste to what fits on the plate. If you don't have any small plates then just visualize 1/3 or so of the plate that's allowed to be filled and eaten. I'm assuming you will be guessing the calorie count for these tastings and that's okay. Also, as most of us can attest to this - don't share what you are doing, though they may see your change in eating just offer some excuse about it try not to discuss losing weight :)

    Thanks for the sympathy. I have a step tracker and I'm quite active. Today has been quite inactive for me, but I still made 11k steps.....although some of those will be false. My only mode of transport is a bicycle, and is six miles to work. I can't count coming home because it's almost all downhill. On a long shift, I can get in around 20k steps, plus my cycling, and even more on my days off because I spend most of them doing barn chores and riding my horse. It was linked to MFP for a while but i suspect it was buggy, so I unlinked it.
    Tbh, I think it's a waste of time and only wear it for the clock function these days, and to time my run, which I do once a week.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    edited November 2016
    lieajane wrote: »
    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    Yes you can. All you need to do is create habit around mini routines. Instead of having a time based routine have a condition based routine in the simple form of "if...then". For example: if i'm not hungry then no eating, or if I had cake then I can't have a candy bar, if work starts in an hour then I need to get in a quick workout if possible, if I'm close to my work place get out of the car and walk the rest of the way...etc. It doesn't have to be these exact things, but a habit can be created when there is a condition to trigger it regardless of time.

    Great idea!
    I had toyed with the idea of creating a routine like I'd code a website, but I haven't quite been able to join it up. (And it's been so many years since I had to do anything like that so I'm not even sure I remember how!)
    Amusedmonkey, do you program your time like this? If so, please tell me more? What conditions do you use? Do you associate a reward with each action? Did you feel the need to write it down and if so, how and where?
    ....I may take this over to NF to see if I can find more insight there.

    I work per project and my time is really unpredictable, I could be working all day one day, then only a couple of hours the next, then stay up and work at night and so on. I work from home so my particular conditions may not apply to you. You can write things down if you wish to organize your habits.

    I don't write things down. I simply started doing one thing and gradually added other things. For example, I'm an avid tea drinker, and whenever I put on a kettle I walk around the house. It may sound silly, but that added about 2500-3000 extra steps to my day or the equivalent of a 20 or so minute walk without even having to deliberately try. Now clicking the kettle triggers the walking automatically. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I don't walk. I don't usually attach a reward, but you can if you want (I have read a study where they had people walk on the treadmill, and those who rewarded themselves with chocolate formed the habit faster and kept it even after the chocolate was taken away).

    Another example stems from my childhood. I've never picked up the habit of drinking soft drinks daily because they were associated with only certain meals (namely pizza and burgers), so I tried to create habits around certain foods. If I'm having pizza or pizza-like items (like savory pastries) there has to be a large dish finger vegetables like sweet pepper strips, carrot sticks...etc. Just like it feels weird to have a burger without fries to some, now a pizza-like meal doesn't feel complete without finger vegetables. The pizza triggers the desire for vegetables. Such a simple change, but it has helped me reduce my pizza portions without even trying because I'm full sooner. may not work if you are a "clear the plate" kind of person. I also only have cake on birthdays. Because I've made it into a habit now I don't even think about cake unless there is a birthday.

    My workouts are not consistent either. I have issues that make me unable to exercise on some days. Instead of a timed schedule I have a pattern schedule. For example: I have a pattern for running: recovery, semi long run, recovery, long run, repeat, preferably on the designated days but not necessarily. Luckily I haven't had any negative events in the past few weeks so I'm running on schedule, but if at some point I do a semi long run, for example, and then become unable to exercise for a week, as soon as I'm able I do a recovery run. It doesn't have to follow a schedule. I do have these on excel and I highlight whichever run I do.

    My runs. between weeks 3 and 4 I had to take an off for 3 weeks, but was able to resume without problems. I also had days here and there where I couldn't run. The highlighted portion looks like nearly 10 weeks, but it took about 16.

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