Louise and I commute to and from work. We get up in the morning, stumble out of the door around 7am and return home around 6pm. A quick coffee, dinner, and depending on what needs done around the house a quick tidy up or anything that needs done for the next day.
After that, it’s either TV, computer or some other sedentary habit.
However the cross trainer has been extracated from the garage and is back in the living room, and whilst I’ve still to venture near it, Louise has taken it for a spin a few times.
The habit is the hard thing to break. I managed it when I started jogging a couple of years ago but as I’m trying to lose more weight before trying that activity again I’m finding it hard to diet hard enough to make any kind of progress.
That said, I have lost 11lbs since my blood pressure scare a couple of months ago, and I’m still watching what I’m eating (to a point). I know I could do better but… habit, you see.
So, my dear blog reading friends. Have you broken a habit? If so, how? Please share your wisdom in the comments.
You lost 11lbs in a couple of months? Blimey, man, it took me 5 months of habit-breaking to lose that and I reckon I did extremely well – and it was twice the loss that the doctor had recommended in that time.
If I decide to break a habit, I tell myself that I don’t do *that* any more. It’s the strength of the decision, I find, that matters, I have to mean it. So it’s not that I don’t like chocolate, but as I don’t eat it any more, there’s no question of buying or eating it.
As for forming a habit, it’s the same thing. Thursday’s when I *always* go swimming, for example. Even if I did it for the first time last week. And I made a rule never to get in the car for less than a couple of miles – from here, everywhere’s either a mile or two, or at least nine.
i have a travel habit and a word habit. Both of which are dwindling on the edges of strangeness, but have managed to curtail the travel habit at least for this weekend…
the need to get away is just sometimes overpowering!
I managed to break an overeating/snack habit, and in the process lost 55 pounds. Better yet, I’ve kept that weight off for more than a year now.
The process was simple: I recorded every thing I ate in a spreadsheet, and looked up the caloric content and summed it up each day. After a week or so it was painfully obvious that I was consuming 1000-1200 extra calories per day in soda, ice cream (after dinner) and other snacks. By eliminating those calories from my diet (not dieting, mind you), I lost an average of two pounds a week. (1000 calories a day * seven days/week = 7000 calories/week.)
Do a search for the “Hacker Diet” for more details.
Oh no, you stopped the running did you? I always wondered how the he11 you kept that up, having stopped, started, and ultimately failed myself. I tried, I did, but whenever I was short on sleep or feeling a bit under the weather I’d excuse myself from going, saying “another day”, but of course another day never came.
I’m definitely going tomorrow lunch-time though. !
Yeah, injured my knee and it’s still not up to jogging. Or I’d still be doing it!