Four steps to help you implement a new habit

It’s been a long day at work, but today you feel like exercising once you get home… There is this new thing that you saw on YouTube, a short 5-minute routine that targets your abs, doing sit ups, legs raise and plank. You get home and you do it, yep you feel great! Well done!! 

After you finished, is time to have dinner and you, your husband and few friends head out to the pub. You don’t have many options, what are you supposed to eat there? Of course, you cannot go and don’t have a burger! And oh, so you have it… a juicy, delicious burger with a nice bun and all in it…

Lately, you’ve been really good at no drinking alcohol, you’ve just had one glass of wine for the past three months! Awesome!! You feel great, but then, what should you drink with that burger? Water? It really doesn’t go well with it and you don’t like beer, so you decided on a coke, but you’ll make sure it’s a diet coke! 

The night goes well, that burger was fantastic, and the coke, well… you were so thirsty that you end up drinking 4 glasses…

By the time you get home you are high and pumped up! The problem is that it’s time to go to bed, but you don’t feel like it! And it’s a Wednesday night, you have to wake up early the next day…dang it! 

Why are you not sleepy...oh, damn!!! That’s right, the 4 cokes…!!!  

Now it’s past midnight and you can’t get to bed…you’ll have to take a sleeping pill…and so you do and finally fall asleep…oh my, you have about 5 hours of sleep…Thursday is going to be though…

Have you ever been in a similar situation?

Have you ever had great intentions about your health, about eating better, about exercising more and then not been able to follow through? 

Or, you’ve been able to start doing some changes but then life got on the way and you couldn’t keep up? 

There are always things that get on the way, friends want to go out, family calls, you have to travel for work, or work for long hours, your kids need to finish their project, or they get sick… 

How can you set up a healthy lifestyle that works for your busy schedule? Or, even better, how can you stick to the plan when stuff hits the fan?

How can you follow through with your good intentions?

I think this is a big issue for most of us that want to change.

Most of us knows what we need to change, we understand what areas we’d like to be better. We have ideas of how we want to look like, how we want to feel, but when it comes to execute and follow through with the plan to get there…that’s where we have issues... 

A few years ago, I had my own idea of what I wanted for my health, I had my idea of how I wanted to feel in my own body. I knew I didn’t want to feel tired, I didn’t want to have migraines, I didn’t want to feel bloated, I didn’t want to take any pills for my thyroid, I didn’t want to have stomach and gastrointestinal issues, I knew all that. 

So, I started looking for information that would help me with my goals. I dove deep into books, videos, podcasts, articles, anything I could find that was related to autoimmune diseases and how to manage them without depending on pills. 

I found a video from Dr. Terry Wahls, and seeing her talking about how she managed to decrease the symptoms of her MS by changing her nutrition was my AHA moment…

If she was able to do that with MS, then it was possible for me to do the same for my thyroid…right??? 

Following the bread crumbs of information, I found a nutritional plan that was aimed specifically at managing autoimmune diseases, the AIP (Autoimmune Protocol).

I bought a couple of recipe books, I put together my shopping list, went grocery shopping and I decided to start this new meal plan on a Monday, 18th August 2014. 

I know the exact date because I started recording every meal that same day. I monitored everything I ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner and took notes about how I felt. It’s been more than five years and I am still doing that. My spreadsheet runs pretty long now…

Everyone that knows what my eating plan looks like keeps on telling me that I have a very strong will power. Because it was really a drastic change. I cut out everything that could possibly cause inflammation and my food choices became a lot more restricted. I wasn't able to go out to many of the restaurants that my friends would go, and my meal preparation got a little more complicated...

At work, I wouldn’t eat the lunches that were brought for meetings, and I wouldn’t join whenever it’s pizza Friday or any other type of celebration that involved any meals. 

But how is it that I am able to stick with this different lifestyle without getting back to my old routine? 

Is it really just strong will power? 

I don't think so…

If I had to rely only on will power I’m not sure I would have made this new lifestyle stick. Will power is finite; it can only take you so far. As the day passes by, your will power gets weaker and weaker. So, no, I don't believe you need a strong will power. 

When I look back, I see that there were four steps that made me stick to this new routine.

The first one was having a strong reason for doing this. My reason was that I didn't want to depend on taking any pills for the rest of my life. I wanted to be able to restore health back to my body because I knew that my body would be able to heal if I just provided it with the right nutrients, environment and support. 

Now, this was something I had to learn and shift because when I was doing all the research I wasn't yet sure if my body could get back to health. 

This was my second step, I had this old belief about having an autoimmune disease and that it was genetic (my dad and three of my sisters also have autoimmune diseases) and therefore I couldn't change that. If it was in my DNA, that was it, I was stuck with it. 

But, when during my research I learnt about epigenetics, my old belief was shaken. I realized that I wasn't stuck with this. That opened my eyes, now there was something I could do about it, and so I went for it.

The third thing that made me stick with this was seeing the small positive changes in my body. 

Feeling the change in my energy, being able to finally have stable blood sugar levels, not having any more migraines, not having any more IBS, improving my nails, noticing my skin getting better, noticing the sharpness of my brain, remembering things so much better, being able to focus, not having foggy brain, the results of my blood tests coming back within range…

All these things kept me going and reinforcing my new belief that if I took care of the way I nourish my body; my body would get back to health. 

Now, of course, to stick to the new lifestyle at the beginning of the process, I had to make sure I was prepared, this was the fourth step. And this is crucial to be able to install a new habit or behavior. 

I had to make sure that I would be ready whenever “temptation” was in front of me. I had to plan my meals in advance, to make sure I had food whenever it was time to eat. I had to make sure I had snacks that I can eat, so I wouldn't go back to the old routine. I planned whenever I was invited to friends’ gatherings and I bring my food with me whenever I had to travel to other cities. 

I searched for alternative snacks, food that I can carry when travelling, things that I can do to make sure I was not reverting to old habits.

Yes, it was and still is work, but, when you have a strong reason and see results, it makes it easier to stick with it, and you don't depend only on your will power to keep going.

So, here are four steps to help you when you want to implement a new habit in your life:

First, know why you want to do it. Be very clear on what is your reason for the change. 

Second, check what types of beliefs have been holding you from changing in the past. Evaluate if those beliefs are going to help you moving ahead or stop you from changing. 

In my case, if I were to start my new lifestyle with my old belief that I couldn't do anything because of my genetics, I probably wouldn’t be able to make any progress, because subconsciously I didn’t believe that there was anything I could do. I would have sabotage myself on that new journey. 

So, understanding what type of beliefs you have around the new change that you are trying to implement is a very important step, to avoid self-sabotaging your progress.

Third, focus on the progress, no matter how small it is, acknowledge it and celebrate that you are moving along one small step at a time. Track your results, track your daily habits.

Fourth, be prepared, get rid of anything that could sabotage your new behavior, and put in place a plan that will take care of unexpected situations that could take you out of your progress. 

Now tell me, what can is one thing that you want to change in your life? What can you do today to start that change? What do are your beliefs around that area, are they supporting you or stopping you? What can you do to prepare in advance for the unexpected? 

Please share your thoughts below; I’d love to hear from you!!

xoxo,

Sofia