Bad Habits You Need To Get Rid Of

We eat for many reasons, but the main prompt for mindful eating is physical hunger. It’s hard to be present if you’re eating at your desk, cyber-loafing, or watching television. When your mind is focusing on something besides your food, you don’t realize things like ‘Was the food actually good?’ and ‘Am I getting full?’ This often leads to ‘do-over eating’, which isn’t so mindful. Eat with purpose and presence!

Habit: It’s that thing that we do when we’re not paying attention to what we’re doing. But what if you could change your habits so that you could start losing fat automatically, without ever having to think about it? It’s easier than you think.

We develop habits because they save us time and energy (you don’t have to think about whether to make coffee in the morning, you just do it), and because they give us a sense of comfort and reward. But neurons in the brain actually judge the rewards and costs of habits, which means they might be easier to change than you think, according to new research at MIT. Breaking a bad habit may be as simple as upping the penalty: Set aside money to buy yourself something special, then subtract from your little nest egg every time you break down and sneak a midnight snack. Eventually, your brain will decide that the cost isn’t worth the benefit, the research suggests. But which habits are costing you the most?

You’re Drinking Diet Sodas

It’s a logical assumption: Switching from a sugar-based soda to a non-sugar-based soda should help your health. While calorically speaking that might be true, diet sodas contain their own dangers and side effects. In a shocking study, researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center monitored 475 adults for 10 years and found that the participants who drank diet soda saw a 70 percent increase in waist circumference compared with those who didn’t drink any soda. So much for the idea that diet soda helps you diet. That’s not all: The participants who drank more than two diet sodas a day suffered a 500 percent waist expansion. Yikes! The same researchers conducted a separate study on mice that indicates it might be the aspartame that causes the weight gain. Aspartame raises blood glucose levels to a point where the liver cannot handle it all, so the excess glucose is converted into fat.

Fix: Drink black tea instead, for a caffeine buzz without the weight gain.

You Eat Mostly With Groups

When we eat with other people, we consume, on average, 44 percent more food than we do when dining alone. Research published in the journal Nutrition found that a meal eaten with one other person was 33 percent larger than a meal savored alone. It gets scarier from there. Third-wheeling with two friends? You’re looking at a 47 percent bigger meal. Dining with four, six, or 8+ friends was associated with meal increases of 69, 70 and 96 percent, respectively. Though part of this has to do with the amount of time we spend at the table when dining with company, another study from the journal Appetite found people who spent longer eating because they were simultaneously reading didn’t eat significantly more, meaning time isn’t the only factor at play here.

Fix: You can still hang out with your friends. Just vary the activity once in a while, and include short runs or walk-and-talks. You’ll save money and calories.

You’re Married To Your Bestie

For better or.. fatter? Research suggests a committed relationship has the potential to wreak havoc on your diet. A study in the American Journal of Public Health analyzed the impact spouses, friends, and siblings played on dietary patterns over the course of 10 years. Couples had the greatest influence on each other’s eating habits, particularly when it came to drinking booze and snacking.

Fix: The good news is the “halo effect” applies to healthy habits too. A Harvard Public School of Health study found that people on a weight-loss program who had the support of at least one partner lost 6.5 pounds more than those going it alone. So sign up your spouse or friend to be your partner in getting fit.

You Order Last

If you want to eat healthy when dining out with a group of friends, keep healthy company... or order first! Groups of people tend to order similarly, especially when forced to give their order out loud. This may be due to the fact that people are happier making similar choices as their peers.

Fix: If you’re determined to make healthy choices, stick to your decision and get your order in first.

Social Media Addiction

Spending hours on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter when you could be up and about burning calories is a growing health concern. A study of 350 students from the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland found that the more time they spent on Facebook, the less time they spent exercising or engaging in team sports. Particularly fattening is catching up with your social networks before bed, or even in bed! Students with access to one electronic device in their bedrooms were 1.47 times as likely to be overweight as those with no device in the bedroom. That increased to 2.57 times for kids with three devices.

Fix: Turn that catch-up session into an inperson meet-up and, no, not at a restaurant. And yes it is possible to lose weight while lying down and doing nothing.

You Don’t Eat Mindfully

Be mindful about eating mindfully. The practice has ancient Buddhist roots. It is, in fact, a form of secular meditation, asking us to experience food more intensely, paying close attention to the sensation and purpose of each bite. Mindful eating is not a diet and it doesn’t ask you to eat less, but the approach is gaining traction as a successful weight-loss mechanism. In fact, mindful eaters respond less to emotional stress, consume significantly fewer calories, and have an easier time maintaining a healthy BMI compared with those who are unaware.

Fix: Chew slowly. Tune in to the texture, the smell, and complexity of flavors. Keep chewing. Swallow. Take a sip of water. And for a few moments, resist the urge to take another bite. Continue this way throughout the course of a meal and you’ll experience the pleasures and frustrations of mindful eating.

You Distract Yourself

We eat for many reasons, but the main prompt for mindful eating is physical hunger. It’s hard to be present if you’re eating at your desk, cyber-loafing, or watching television. When your mind is focusing on something besides your food, you don’t realize things like ‘Was the food actually good?’ and ‘Am I getting full?’ This often leads to ‘do-over eating’, which isn’t so mindful. Eat with purpose and presence!

Fix: Minimize distractions as often as possible. In other words, that episode of Empire can be watched after dinner.

You Don’t Talk To Yourself

Mindful eating can help you break free from old automatic, habitual patterns of reacting to environmental and emotional triggers. So whenever you feel like eating, pause to ask ‘Am I hungry?’ and choose how you’ll respond”.

Fix: Eat mindfully with intention and attention. Eat with the intention of feeling better when you’re finished eating than you did when you started, and eat with your full attention on the food and your body for optimal enjoyment and satisfaction.

You Fell Into The Trap

Our homes are filled with hidden eating traps, and simply being aware of something as simple as the size of a bowl can influence how much you eat. Moviegoers can eat 45 percent more fresh popcorn from extra-large containers than large ones. People automatically tend to pour more liquid into short, wide glasses than in tall, skinny ones of the same volume. Even a kid’s cereal bowl can be a hidden trap for mindless overeating. A study in the Journal of Pediatrics found children who were given a 16-ounce bowl served themselves twice as much cereal as children given an 8-ounce bowl.

Fix: Bottom line: It’s easier to change your environment than to change your mind. Employing simple strategies like eating off salad plates instead of large dinner plates are more likely to succeed than willpower alone.

You Haven’t Crowdsourced Praise

Positive affirmations can help boost your confidence, but they can sometimes be hard to use when you feel at odds with your appearance.

Fix: Turn the idea on its head a bit. Look in the mirror. If you are having trouble saying anything kind about yourself or your body, ask those you love to help you. Request notes from your best friends, your parents, your siblings, and anyone else whose opinion can lift you. Post these notes on your mirror, and read them out loud each day. Allow their words to become your own.

You Stay In Your Comfort Zone

Do things that challenge you physically!

Fix: It can be as simple as going for a run or as extreme as taking a kiteboarding lesson. When you do something challenging, your mind automatically shifts to being present. And when you are present, there’s no judgment. Now you can enjoy the strength of your body and feel connected to it. How do you feel after a challenge? Like a winner! And that’s exactly the mindset that will boost your self-confidence.

There are so many more but I will stop here, maybe I’ll continue next week…we’ll see. Have a wonderful weekend.