What do I do? I typically have a large bowl of ice cream. It seems like a great idea at the time--a way to be nice to myself by having as much as I want. Tomorrow, I think . . . I can always count calories then.
I share this pattern of mine from several years back because it's a good example of a routine that developed over time not in response to actual hunger, but rather as a reaction to a physical and emotional need. It's also exemplifies why dieting alone fails to work for many people. I didn't really eat because I was hungry. Rather, I ate because I was tired, a little bit lonely and feeling like I wanted to be nice to myself when others were unaware or indifferent to how I might be feeling.
Other folks drink, smoke, shop online, play computer games, camp out on the couch, or "live" on the internet for similar reasons. While some behaviors truly are detrimental, most done in moderation are not a concern. The challenge occurs when we engage in a behavior to the point where it does create problems for our physical, emotional and/or relational health. Then we need to think about changing.
One of the most helpful things I've read about changing our behavior is written by Charles Duhigg. In The Power of Habit, Duhigg lays out the framework for changing any habit in the following four steps:
- Identify the routine.
- Experiment with the rewards.
- Isolate the cue.
- Have a plan.
For me this meant first identifying the routine associated with my big-bowl-of-ice-cream fixation. As you can see from the description above, it had a lot to do with arriving home around 9 PM after 4-5 hours of mentally and emotionally exhausting work and feeling that I wanted to be nice to myself in some way.
If I wanted to change the routine, I was clearly going to have to come up with something to take the place of Rocky Road ice cream, one of my favorites.
I recognized the cue (arriving home after a long day of work), but it wasn't simply arriving at home since I did that every other day of the week and didn't feel the same compulsion to eat then. Since I didn't necessarily want to stay out all night or make reservations at a hotel on Tuesday evenings, I needed to come up with an acceptable alternative.
Fortunately, my Main Man, although initially unaware of this pattern, was willing to be part of experimenting with alternative possibilities. On at least two different occasions for a period of several weeks, we took dancing lessons. This required me to leave the paperwork to the next day, hop in the car with him and drive to our lessons a good 20-30 minutes away. After that, we spent the next hours trying to master the moves of the fox trot, swing and rumba. On other occasions, we simply left our teens to tend to themselves in the house and took a good long walk with the dog. On nights like these, ice cream looked much less attractive. It turns out that what I really wanted and needed was not ice cream so much as human interaction and activity where someone would listen and do something fun with me.
If you've decided that now is the time for you to take some steps toward positive change in your life, I'd like to suggest that over the next week you observe your pattern. What is the context of your troublesome behavior? What kinds of activities and emotions are associated with the thing you'd like to change? Don't necessarily try to change anything yet. Just pay attention to what's going on with you, what you're feeling before you do it and how you feel after.
And, if you're really serious about making a change, I strongly suggest you click on the link below and watch the short, but very well done clip by Duhigg. Even better, read the book or listen to it on Audible. I think you'll find it to be intriguing and helpful.
No comments:
Post a Comment