Use Accountability to Nix Bad Eating Habits

One of the ways that I've kept myself from achieving my health and fitness goals is by living in idea-land. Where is idea-land? The space occupied by the hundreds of diet, health and fitness books I've read over the years. I've learned lots of ideas; but I haven't implemented very many of them --- hence my lack of consistency, in both my body weight and my eating habits. But acting on ideas, with regularity, is what brings results.

Do you think about loving your body, caring for yourself, or improving your health, but don't change your behavior? Do you do the same thing, over and over again, while expecting different results?

Here's an idea for the week:  do one thing differently. Experiment:  what happens when you swap your ice cream snack for fresh berries? When you go to bed an hour earlier? When you eat every few hours instead of 2 or 3 large meals? When you add a weekly strength training session to your routine?

Over the past few weeks, I've finally put into practice a few of the many wonderful ideas I've read about over the years. I've been eating every 2-3 hours, breaking my meals into smaller portions. This has given me balanced energy and moods, and has stopped my late night food binges. I've also kept a food diary, which has been very informative. When I write down what I'm actually eating, I've discovered that I'm eating a lot more calories than I had thought:  no wonder I'm heavier than normal. I've also --- gasp --- been weighing myself regularly. This is the only way that I know how to track my progress in losing some extra flab. Otherwise, I'm having imaginary conversations in my head that aren't based in reality:  I'm gaining weight. I'm not making any progress. Eating more often is making me heavier, not leaner. The scale gives me feedback, refuting these irrational fears, as does my food journal.

This brings me to a reason why I've spent so many years in Idea-land:  I didn't want to be accountable. When you're not monitoring your health, your weight, or your food choices, it's easy to fudge the truth. I didn't want to own up to what I was eating; my lack of discipline, my sneaky habits of using food to fulfill my needs for comfort, stress relief, or pleasure. After all, aren't I positioning myself as someone who has some answers on the food and fat madness that haunts women? Would what it mean to admit that my own eating habits need some fine tuning?

It would mean that I'm human, and that I, like you, go through cycles where I need more accountability, when I need to change course and hold myself to a higher standard.

Other reasons why I resist accountability? It feels like too much work. I've resisted keeping a food journal for years:  I didn't want to think that much about my food, especially after I spent years dieting, where all I thought about was what I did or didn't eat that day. Two things to consider:   writing things down frees you from thinking about food. Now that I'm tracking my food on paper, I can go back and review my food choices for the day or week. I don't have to keep it all in my head. Secondly, take into account your motivation for tracking your health, whether through a scale or a food diary. Food diaries and scales and body fat measuring devices are just tools. We can use them to improve our lives, or we can use them to control our lives:  the choice is ours.

Here's something else to consider:  adding structure, discipline and accountability is what enables us to accomplish our health goals. Good health, weight loss, or a toned, strong body:  these things don't happen by themselves. We need routines and order to change, to alter unhealthy habits. Change is uncomfortable, difficult, and unnerving. We can be kind to ourselves during these times of transition and make our success as easy as possible. How? By adding more structure and accountability. Once our new habits and behaviors are in place, we may not need to be as disciplined. But for now, we do. Accepting that we need more structure is NOT a sign of weakness; it's a sign that we are using our higher wisdom, our inner parent, to guide our choices. It's one way we care for ourselves. This is what transforms negative habits into positive ones, one baby step at a time. 

How can you make yourself more accountable? How can you alter negative health habits? Here are 4 ideas:

1. Get a physical. When I hit rock bottom a few weeks ago, I went to see my doctor, who ran me through a battery of tests. These tests gave me a sense of my fitness, my base point. Some of it was good; some not so good. The discovery process hurt a bit:  Did I really enjoy hearing that my body fat percentage is too high? No. But it let me know where I stand, as well as direction on how to improve. Here's an analogy:  if you're in debt, it's important to tabulate how much you owe. We avoid finding out because we don't want to know, but facing the truth is what frees us to make changes and move forward.

2. Weigh or measure yourself regularly. So many of us, myself included, have admonished women over the years to throw away their scales. Yes, we can weigh ourselves obsessively. We can let our weight mistakenly dictate our self-esteem and self-worth. Or we can let it serve it's rightful purpose:  as a marker of one aspect of our health. That's all it is:  if we can separate our feelings about our weight from the number itself, then we can use this as a way of tracking our health over time. If you don't want to weigh yourself, measure yourself regularly, or use how your clothing fits as a guideline. When your weight creeps up (or down, for some women), then you can decide to alter your food intake or your movement, if it's important to you to maintain a healthy weight range.

3. Keep a food diary. Writing things down has an incredible effect on our behavior:  when I began (honestly) tracking my food intake, it kept me accountable. I also saw that I was eating a lot more food than I had presumed. How will you know if certain foods cause you to overeat, if you're sensitive to sugar, or if processed foods are contributing to low energy if you aren't collecting this information? You won't. You'll end up guessing --- a guess that's often based on what you think you're eating, rather than what you're really eating. Assuage your worry and anxiety by keeping track. Then, you'll have hard data by which to make your eating decisions.

4. Commit to a change for 30 days. It takes 4 weeks to ingrain a habit, to root it in solid soil so that it becomes a part of your day to day routine. Here's what I've done over the years:  I read about a new health tip, try it for a few days, and then give up --- saying it didn't "work." Instead, what if I gave myself time for an idea to produce results?

What changes can you implement in the next 30 days? Here are a few ideas. Pick one that appeals to you:

Go to bed before 10:30 p.m., or get on a regular sleeping schedule.
Give up your refined sugar snacks, trading candy and ice cream for fresh fruit.
Add 3 after dinner walks a week to your evening routine.
Break up your food into 5-6 mini meals, instead of 3 large meals a day.
Eat breakfast within an hour of waking up.
Trade your refined flour bread, cereals, and tortillas for sprouted, flourless grain products.
Begin your day with 10 minutes of quiet, alone time for prayer, meditation, or journaling.
Make a commitment to calling a friend once a week to improve your feelings of connection and intimacy.
Get dressed every morning in something that makes you feel pretty, even if you're a stay at home Mom.

Small changes do add up to big changes over time. Why do you resist changing? What changes are you implementing in your life? 

Comments

[Jill]

This is brilliant Karly, really. I am going through a shift in my thinking lately and really trying hard to make some changes in the way I eat and my attitude toward food in general.

I have really enjoyed your posts lately, even though I'm sure they came out of a tough time for you. I hope you are feeling better and are taking more time for yourself. Great job on the posts!

[JoLynn Braley]

Hi Karly, tons of great info here, I really like it! The only thing that wouldn't work for me so much is weighing in every day but I can see how you're using it - to quell your inaccurate thinking that you've gained a lot of weight - that makes sense.

And you're bringing up the point that is at the core of everything in life - taking action. We can learn forever but if we don't implement what we learn then it doesn't really help us. Action is where it's at.

I like your new site design, too, it looks really clean. Keep up the great work, both on your self care and your site, great job! :)