Now, let’s look at your Environment
Now that you are becoming more AWARE of your habits, triggers, how much food you might be eating and identifying some of your thoughts and feelings, how about starting to set yourself up for success? How? Your ENVIRONMENT.
Look around you, and begin with the basics. What is easy and most-accessible? Do you have healthy, whole foods available at your fingertips, or open your cabinets and refrigerator to be bombarded by too many options, processed foods and caloric drinks? Are there snacks or treats within reach, or out in view that you struggle to regulate?
Why would you make your daily life so hard, relying on willpower when you could just put these foods to the back of the fridge, in a closed pantry, or get rid of them altogether. This is NOT a sign of weakness, this is a sign of intelligence! Willpower only wins out for so long before the monkey brain takes over, why fight this fight? You will lose.
How about your social environment? Are you going out to eat multiple times a week, ordering takeout or having drinks with friends way too often? Dial it in, spend more time cooking with family and friends at home, choose one night a week for eating out of the house and let that be a treat you’ll enjoy more if it’s less often, have a plan when you do eat out and choose which treats you will allow and how many. Again, NOT a sign of restricted living, a sign of intelligence! YOU make the choice, no one else.
Can’t walk by the office breakroom without stopping for candy, donuts, or the vending machine? Stop walking by the breakroom. Take a different route to the bathroom (more steps!), stop bringing change into the office so you can buy snacks. Make these not-so-great habits HARDER, give yourself barriers to the bad habits, and make the good habits easier (Healthy options displayed on your desk? BAM. Easy.)
Control what you can control. Set yourself up to make smart choices, so when you step back for a birds' eye view, you see an over-arching LIFESTYLE full of options that lead you towards success, not away.
