The Key to Lasting Weight-Loss: Changing Your Habits

How would you define a “successful” diet?

Chances are, you’d talk about reaching a particular, measurable, goal. For many dieters, that means getting to a target weight; for others, it could be a particular waist measurement. It might just mean fitting back into those old jeans.

Something that I think is key to a “successful” diet is that you’ve changed some of your habits.

After all, you could lose weight by eating nothing but cabbage soup, or drinking Slimfast (I’d not recommend either diet). If you then go straight back to your “normal” eating habits, guess what? That weight’s going to come straight back on…

What Are Your Current Eating Habits?

If you’re starting off on a diet, or if you seem to have come to a plateau, it can be worth taking a look at your eating habits. These can fall into several different categories:

• Habits about when you eat (including who you eat with and where you are)
• Habits about what you eat
• Habits about why you eat
• Habits about how you eat

All of these habits can either be supporting your diet or undermining it. For example, if you’re in the habit of stopping off for a latte and muffin on the way to work, you might need to change when you eat to have a healthier breakfast at home.

Here are a few bad habits that many of us fall into at one time or another:

• Eating on the run, grabbing fast food or unhealthy snacks
• Eating because we’re bored, upset or tired
• Eating too fast: not chewing properly, and not taking time to enjoy the meal

What Habits Have You Changed?

Chances are, you’ve already changed some of your habits while dieting. Even on weeks when the scales refuse to budge, congratulate yourself for sticking to your new habits: this is what’s going to make the long-term difference. (After all, would you rather lose weight fast and be slim for a year, or lose weight slowly and be slim for the rest of your life?)

Think about the habits that you’ve successfully changed. It might help to jot them down. How about:

• Drinking diet soda instead of full-sugar soda
• Switching from full-fat milk to skim milk
• Going for a walk every day
• Eating breakfast
• Having an extra portion of vegetables with dinner

These might seem like small changes … but they really do add up over the course of a day, a month or a lifetime.

How Can You Keep Changing Your Habits?

The next step is to look at the current habits you have. Are there any which you’d like to ditch? Perhaps you always buy a candy bar after lunch, simply because you’re in the habit of doing so. Can you cut down to having the candy just once or twice a week? (You’ll probably enjoy it much more that way.)

If you want to encourage yourself to exercise, make it a habit – something you do almost automatically. Ride your bike to the shops instead of taking the car. Go for a walk at the weekend instead of lounging in front of the television.

Sometimes, you won’t want to give up a habit altogether – but you can tweak it to make it a bit healthier. I’m rather partial to pick-n-mix candy when going to movies … but I know this little habit isn’t doing much good for my sugar, fat and calorie intakes! Instead, I’ll take a small bag of sweet popcorn and some hard candy – not exactly nutritionally-sound, but much less damaging than my former pick-n-mix habit.

What habits would you like to change? How could you tweak your daily routine or your typical grocery purchases to get into better habits?

Written by Ali Hale

Related posts:

1. Getting Into Great Dieting Habits
2. Getting Honest About Your Eating Habits
3. Seven Great Habits of Slim People