Month: December 2022

One Habit at a Time: New Year’s Resolutions

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I’ve been told it takes four to six weeks for any action to become a habit. So, keeping that in mind, one way I’m going to insure my success at keeping my New Year’s resolutions this year is by working on only one new habit at a time each month. Then, if I’m inspired to continue, every time I turn to a new calendar page, I’ll work on developing a different good habit.

At the end of the year, I could easily have twelve new positive habits in my life. Once something’s become a habit, it’s simply a part of my life and not something I’ll even have to think about anymore.

Here are some sample goals and habits I’m planning to implement throughout the coming year (in no particular order — taken one at time, one per month):

  • Go to the gym three to four times per week
  • Spend time everyday, maybe half an hour, reading just for fun (I tend to read serious material, and I’m feeling I need to be a bit more lighthearted about what I put into my mind)
  • Spend time, probably half an hour, practicing self-care each day
  • Work on my latest writing project for half an hour everyday
  • Spend ten minutes each day decluttering

If I start the New Year off by attempting to do all of these things at the same time, I know I’d become overwhelmed, and then give up long before any of these activities became habitual and second-nature.

What’s the area of life you’re most concerned about? Exercise? Weight loss? Healthy eating? Getting organized? Saving money? Spending more time with your kids? Break your goal down into simple steps that you can easily manage, and then start working your way to your goal, one small step at a time.

As the old cliche’ says: How do you eat an elephant? … One bite at a time. By making small and consistent changes, it’s possible to change your health, your body, and your life.

What do I eat?

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Someone asked earlier, now that I’m avoiding my binge foods and foods that I crave (mainly sugar and white flour with some crunch/salty items), what do I eat for my meals. This is a general list:
  • Breakfast is usually either oatmeal, fruit, yogurt, or some sort of egg dish (fried, scrambled, omelette, frittata).
  • Lunch could be yogurt (unsweetened and I add my own fresh fruit), whole grain sandwich, soup, curry, chili, tuna salad.
  • Snacks are usually some sort of fruit, cheese, or lunch meat.
  • Dinner can be most anything – fajita bowl, curry, soup, chili, frittata, whole grain sandwich, chicken salad, variety of salads, fish, meat, rice. Lots of veggies.
I try to stick to three meals per day with one snack. Setting a boundary around the eating helps keep me from bingeing … each meal has a beginning and ending. And then in between there’s no eating except for my one snack (that I try to keep small).
A friend of mine calls her daily snack her “floating fruit” because she always has fruit for a snack, but the timing of when she eats it floats to various times on different days depending on how she’s feeling.

Binges and Cravings and Withdrawls, Oh My!

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Hello. My name is Debi, and I’m a binge eater.

There are times when I start to eat and I can’t stop. I’ve been known to eat an entire large pizza all by myself. I can polish off a giant bowl of buttered popcorn and still be craving more. I can’t eat just one handful of berries; I have to eat every berry in the house, so my binges aren’t just unhealthy things. Yes, I binge on berries. But also candy. And doughnuts. And Lay’s Classic Potato Chips. And nachos. And so very, very many things.

Since I can’t touch these foods without risking a full-on binge, I decided to see what happened if I just avoided my binge foods all together. These are also foods that I often crave, so I suspected going Cold Turkey was going to be difficult. And it was. Sugar withdrawls. Cravings for pasta. Driving past the pizza place. Candy in the checkout line at the grocery store. Actually, almost every aisle in the grocery store contained items I binge/crave.

But I can say that I have now successfully given up my binge/craving foods for eight months! And I feel a hundred percent more in control of my eating. For me, just cutting back and eating moderately didn’t work because it’d set off cravings and binges. I’d just feel like a failure. Why couldn’t I eat in moderation like other people? It was a source of great shame.

So, for now, I’m avoiding sugars (including natural ones because I can binge on honey straight out of the jar); white flour (I don’t crave or binge whole grains so they’re okay); and many salty and crunchy things like popcorn, chips, French fries, and nuts. While I do binge on berries, I’ve left them in my diet because they’re so healthy. But I only bring a single serving size into my house at a time.

I don’t allow myself to go to the store or a drive-thru to satisfy a craving. I just wait it out. Eventually, it passes. But I’ve discovered that the longer I go without those foods that set off cravings, the less I crave them.

Also, I learned recently that binge eating is considered an actual eating disorder. And here I just thought it was my weird, secret eating habit.

And speaking of secrets, I’ve just let you in on a big thing in my life that was a source of shame, guilt, and secrecy. So not only have I found ways to successfully handle this eating problem, I’ve also found the courage to be open and rigorously honest about it.

Welcome to my world!