Spring is when a middle-aged woman’s fancy turns to mending the ravages of winter – the all-too-obvious results of months of comfort food, sun deprivation and less exercise. Add in stress from family or work and overeating from the spring holidays, and most people are feeling less than optimal these days.
Tight clothes and reduced energy levels aside, the real damage is invisible – the visceral fat that clings to the organs, even of people who do not appear to be overweight, aside from that ubiquitous spare tire they don’t seem able to shake.
Many people spend their lives dieting – low-calorie, low-carb, keto, cabbage soup, and round we go again. Most of these diets work, for a while. But the statistics show that most people end up regaining all the weight they lost, and then some. Why is that?
In a word – habits.
A quote often misattributed to Aristotle (it is actually by Will Durant), is that “we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
If we want to develop excellence in self-care, then we need to develop some excellent habits. After all, we know what to do. We just aren’t doing it, because of the power and inertia of our counter-productive habits.
The good news is that habits, like pretty much everything else in our lives, are just thoughts. The more deeply entrenched those thoughts are in our belief system (“Well, that’s just how I am!”), the more challenging it can be to change them. Don’t give up, though – you can do this!
As they say in the self-help world, the first step towards change is awareness. Try and pay attention when you find yourself falling into habits that don’t serve you – what triggers them? How can you head them off at the pass?
Are you staying up too late and getting into the brownies because you want your “me time” while everyone is asleep? Maybe you could try getting up a little earlier, when the house is quiet, and enjoy your coffee in peace.
Are you sitting down in front of the TV and automatically grabbing a bag of chips? Relaxation is important, but are you numbing out as a way of dealing with stress at work? It might be more productive to try and resolve the stressful situation. If you can’t do that, exercise is a great stress reliever – and it won’t leave you feeling bloated.
Self-reflection will not magically make all your self-defeating habits disappear, but it will make it much easier to redirect them into behaviours that serve you better.
Good luck and let me know how it goes!