Habits instead of numbers?

Atomic Habits is a decent book for explaining how to change behaviour.

But basically, the idea is that you figure out what isn't working for you, why, and then adjust things slowly to make the way you want to live easier.

So for example, one of the things I did was I kept raw, chopped veggies in water in the fridge at all times. If I felt snacky, I had to have a bowl of raw veggies first. By the time I was done, I was usually so full of fiber and so sick of chewing, I didn't want another snack.

Eventually, this just cured me of snacking altogether. I don't snack unless I legitimately need more food in that moment, which I rarely do. And if I do, I still keep raw veggies in the fridge, and also hummus and hard boiled eggs, which are nice a filling.

For meals, I started with breakfast. I spent a while figuring out the easiest, most filling breakfast options, and then stuck with that until it became automatic.

Then I started tackling the other meals, one by one, little by little. I would try one new recipe a week, and slowly migrated all of my cooking over to a completely new way of eating.

I also have studied behavioural psychology extensively, so I understood that the brain tends to crave whatever it can get quickest.

As a result, I stopped keeping any convenience food in the house and started batch cooking healthy meals. This way, the only "convenience" food available is nutritious.

I *could* have cookies and pizza, but I would have to go to the store to get them. Or I could have a pre-portioned, nutritious meal that's just a few minutes of microwaving away from being hot and ready to serve.

I didn't do all of these changes at once, I did them incrementally over a year. But they've been my "normal" for years, it would actually take effort to *not* eat this way now.

opalle wrote: »

Xellercin wrote: »

Atomic Habits is a decent book for explaining how to change behaviour.

But basically, the idea is that you figure out what isn't working for you, why, and then adjust things slowly to make the way you want to live easier.

Thank you so much. You seemed to have had success in what I’m looking to do. Congratulations on making those changes! I’ll be checking out the book. Snacking is the first place I have to tackle. I have been back to logging and I’ say 80% of my extra calories comes from snacking, normally at night and normally not healthy. The rest is overeating at meals. I do cook fairly healthy, I love cooking and rarely eat out, but healthy food will still add pounds if you eat too much. I’ve discovered the hunger/fullness scale and can see it being a useful tool to stop eating when my body has had enough instead of when I’m stuffed. Thank you again for your insight. 😊

If late night snacking is a major problem for you, then I would first assess what unmet need you are actually trying to meet with late night snacking?

The human brain and body are pattern generators and followers, so it could be a simple fact that years of snacking at night has created a feedback system that triggers intense hunger signals at night. It could be as simple as just stopping this pattern to get rid of the trigger over time.

However, it could be more than that. There could be an emotional contributor to the pattern. How do you feel at night when this happens? Does it feel like a comforting thing? How is your mood before, during, and after? Are there any coping skills that might actually be more effective to handle whatever feelings come up that you self medicate with food?

These are important things to understand.

For example, I can develop overwhelming sugar or wine cravings depending on my behaviour, but they have very different causes and therefore different solutions.

My sugar craving is purely physiological, I have zero emotional triggers for eating sugar. If I eat sugar a few days in a row, I invariably crave it like crazy, and the more I eat, the worse the craving gets. The simple solution is that I don't eat much sugar regularly. I can have it, but never 2 days in a row, and never more than twice a week. As long as I follow those parameters, I can thoroughly enjoy a piece of cake or some ice cream and not worry about cravings.

If I don't follow those rules and the cravings rage up again, I just avoid sugar for 6 weeks and everything is back under control as my system readjusts to not having the triggering input.

Wine on the other hand? That was driven largely by stress and an attempt to self medicate that stress away after work. Tackling that required understanding how my stress works and developing healthier coping skills to decompress after work. Without the better tools to handle the stress trigger, I failed over and over at trying to just abstain. I could never make it 6 weeks, I would snap.

So sugar I can just cold-turkey and deal with it, but alcohol required supports. Also, as I said, I can thoroughly enjoy a big bowl of ice cream and have no issues, but it's best that I just not drink alcohol, since my relationship with it is emotionally complex.

Can you just *stop* snacking at night for a period of 6 weeks and see how your mind and body respond? If you *can't* abstain for 6 weeks, then it's best to start considering emotional/mental health supports to build in more behavioural resiliencies.

Too many people are quick to blame themselves and feel like failures when a given approach doesn't work, but that's not very useful. Instead try to approach with a sense of curiosity and problem solving, and determine *why* your behaviour isn't matching your intention. Hint: it's not because you're "weak" or lack "willpower," it's because there's an identifiable barrier in your way.

"Can you just *stop* snacking at night for a period of 6 weeks and see how your mind and body respond?",

I think this is a gross oversimplication. If your average person could just "stop", then they would and we wouldn't have a nationwide obesity problem. As you said, it's a matter of figuring out why they're driven to eat to excess, and deal with that by developing coping mechanisms.

First of all, bravo for deciding to focus on small, sustainable habit changes. That is definitely the way I have changed my life and kept off the 60 pounds I lost for about 10 years now (after only knowing how to lose or gain my whole life).

Two resources that I would recommend that really helped me (and still help me) are the podcasts Half Size Me and We Only Look Thin. Both podcasts support making small, sustainable changes to your habits so you can create a lifestyle that you enjoy and that fits your health goals. They are invaluable to my continued ability to maintain.