If you feel powerless and out of control around food, you know only too well that this feeling can wreak havoc on the rest of your life.
If you’ve tried to change, you know how challenging that can be.
Setback after setback.
Always going back to square one.
After a while, you start doubting if anything can change at all.
You feel scared, stuck and and you don’t know how to get out.
The reason for this is simple:
Change is hard.
But why is change so hard?
Most people attempt to change too many things at once.
More often than not, it makes it nearly impossible to change anything at all.
If your mind encounters too much discomfort, it tends to rebel.
It hurries right back to its trusted comfort zone.
Goals that are too big or too broad feel too overwhelming, require too much effort and make you feel too uncomfortable. Eventually, you grow tired of the effort and give up.
So how can we change our unhealthy behaviours?
As strange as it may sound, big problems rarely require big solutions.
Instead, they usually depend on a sequence of small solutions that are implemented one after the other over a period of weeks or months.
The solution here is to break big changes down into smaller adjustments, so that they feel a lot less scary and not nearly as overwhelming.
Using habits for change
In this program, we’re going to use the power of habits to resolve your eating issues.
We’ll do this by breaking big changes down into small habits.
Small habits are easier to build.
Once you’ve finished building one small habit, you can then focus on another.
The more you practise your habit, the easier it becomes.
Eventually, it turns into second nature – easy and comfortable.
It might seem deceptively simple at first glance, but in reality, this habit-building strategy is surprisingly powerful.
Small tasks achieved consistently each day can offer big rewards down the line.
Transform your life one sustainable step at a time!
This approach will work even if you think you:
- lack willpower.
- lack motivation.
- lack commitment.
- are absolutely stuck.
Our program is here to help you get started, keep going and deal with temptations.
It’s simple.
It’s based on common sense.
And, most importantly, it’s truly effective.
Bit by bit, step by step you’ll learn how to listen to your body, stop binge eating, nourish yourself in a balanced way and bring a little peace into your life.
The habit of living a balanced, happy, healthy life will turn into an integral part of how you operate and who you are.
Are habits really that powerful?
All humans are creatures of habit.
Habits control our life.
- Have you ever wondered why it’s so dang hard for you to leave food on your plate?
- Have you ever asked yourself why you crave chocolate when things start to get stressful?
- Have you tried to find out why it’s so difficult to react to stress differently once you get used to stuffing it down with food?
It’s because we spend our entire lives building patterns, associations and habits.
Our actions are almost always based on the patterns and habits that we’ve built earlier on in our lives. Many of them can be traced all the way back to our childhood.
What exactly is a habit?
Just for clarity’s sake, a habit is an action that you take on a repeated basis with little or no effort.
Most of us can relate to the power of automaticity by thinking about brushing our teeth. It’s something that we can accomplish without any conscious effort or thought on our part.
Habits and your brain
The essence of what habits do is this: they form and strengthen neurological needs. As a result, they can create addiction-like responses.
These changes happen mostly at a chemical level. Dopamine often plays the role of the main driver of our reward system here. Scientists call it the ‘go-and-get-it’ neurotransmitter (or brain chemical) because it pushes us to perform whatever is needed to get a reward.
So if you find it hard to resist the temptation of that chocolate bar, dopamine is probably to blame!
It’s not a conscious process, so we’re usually unaware that our brain is doing this.
There’s no need to despair though!
The good news is that the brain will try to turn almost any routine into a habit – and we’re going to use that fact to our advantage. As a result, you can adopt new routines to replace your current, less than helpful habits. 🙂
How to follow the HealED Habits Program
So, how do we do it?
How does this work?
We’ve worked hard on making this program as easy to follow as possible. Simple definitely wins the race when it comes to changes.
Here are the 3 simple steps you need to take to follow the HealED Habits Program from start to finish.
Step 1: Choose 1-2 new habits to focus on
Choose 1-2 new habits to focus on for a period of time.
Ideally, you should start with one. Keep in mind that it’s always better to start small.
When you feel like you’ve got a handle on that habit, pick another one (or two) from the list and focus on that.
That’s it.
When choosing these habits, try and go for the ones that you’re sure you can practise consistently.
Remember – too much change at once is uncomfortable.
If you overdo it, your mind might try to rebel by postponing, distracting, delaying or simply refusing to play along.
If you’re struggling with practising your new habit, keep making it simpler until you’re confident that you’ll be able to work on it every single day. We provide suggestions for different mini-habits in all of our modules.
It can be helpful for you to ask yourself:
“On a scale of 1 to 10 — 1 being not confident at all and 10 being absolutely sure — how confident am I that I can practise this habit every single day?”
If the answer is a 9 or 10, you can start practising your new habit immediately.
However, if your chosen number is smaller, try and simplify the habit. 🙂
Step 2: Practise your new habit daily
To build a habit, you need to practise it consistently, so try and work on it every single day.
However, you shouldn’t beat yourself up if you end up skipping a day or two.
It’s completely normal. Our lives are often unpredictable, so it would be unrealistic to expect perfect consistency. As long as you keep going the next day and refuse to let an exception turn into a rule, there’s no need to worry.
With that being said, you should still try and remember that the more days you miss, the harder returning to your new routine will be. An important tip here is to do your best not to break your habit for more than two days in a row.
If you find yourself breaking this rule of thumb time and time again, it might be a sign that your chosen habit is too challenging for you at the moment.
That’s fine too – we want you to move forward at your own pace! Simply take a step back and try to break the habit down into something less challenging.
Step 3: Review your progress each week
Each week, sit down and take 10 minutes to review your progress within the HealED Habits program. It will help you to stay on track and keep on moving forward.
We’ve set up a template that you can use for your weekly review. You can find it here.
That’s it!
All it takes is 3 simple steps:
- Pick a habit.
- Practise it daily.
- Review your progress once a week.
It’s simple, but undoubtedly effective.
You can do this. I know you can.
Failure becomes impossible if you refuse to throw in the towel and give up – and I’m absolutely sure that you don’t want to do that!
Good luck on your journey towards a happier, healthier, more balanced you!