​When I started my weight loss journey, I wasn’t really aware of any healthy habits.   Most of my habits were like my pronounced Diet Pepsi habit, and my smoking habit.  

Yes, I did smoke for over 21 years.  I switched from smoking to vaping and I gave up my Diet Pepsi habit at the same time I started this process.  

I became obsessed with how I could comfortably make healthy habits and break bad habits without feeling like I was going off the edge.  Forunately, I was determined, but I was doubtful.  

I didn’t believe I could lose the weight because I had failed so many times.  But despite my fears I focused on the small things. The healthy habits that had nothing to do with the scale per-say, but they did support my goal to be healthy.  

As I progressed, I realized I felt the same pull to food (Particularly sweets) that I did to nicotine and the Diet Pepsi… they may say there is no such thing as an addictive personality.  I disagree!  

So I found small supporting habits to give up diet Pepsi and cigarettes.  I ended up using these same tactics to change the food I ate and the portions I consumed.

In the end I really didn’t follow the “what they say your supposed to do train”, I had tried that sooo many times before and failed.  So I did it my way and it worked.  

Let’s see if it can work for you too!

First Step to Healthy Habits… Get to Know Your Current Food Habits

The first habit I addressed were my food habits.  

I looked at what I was eating.  What I found out…

I really was a creature of habit.  LOL I can still recite what I was eating for most of the day when I started.  The only meal that varied was dinner. And that was for the entire family.  

At the start of my journey, my day looked like this…  

Breakfast:  Frozen Sausage Egg & Cheese Biscuit 

Lunch: Frozen Cheeseburger (Maybe 2)  

Dinner:  Usually some form of Hamburger Helper  

Snacks: Chips or Pizza Rolls, maybe candy or whatever junk was in the house.    

I grazed a lot.

Knowing this I could see where I could make simple changes.

Creating Healthy Habits Meant I Needed to Fire the worst offenders

I started off replacing the processed with non processed.  Expanding meal planning really helped with this.

In my case there were a lot of offenders so starting off small was key.  I knew I couldn’t replace it all at once.  

Change is not my favorite thing….I don’t do it very well.  It causes huge anxiety… It’s the “I’ll start Monday syndrome”, and all it did was set me up for failure.  

So I worked on making small changes over time.

Create a new food healthy habit

I knew I had to create new food habits.  Since, I already planned the dinners each night,  I just replaced breakfast & lunch with non-processed foods.  

When you do this, look for small changes you can make.  Don’t try to build a house in a day.  ;)

I also changed my snacks to primarily fruits & veggies with cheese.  Don’t try to do this all at once.  I started with dinner because it was for everyone.  

Then I replaced my snacks and finally I replaced breakfast and lunch.  It took me probably 3 months to make all the conversions.   

I was losing during this time just because I switched to lower calorie whole food that allowed my body to get the nutrients from the food.

Create Small Supporting Healthy Habits

The small supporting habits I created were things like…

• buying vegetables
• cutting them up when I got home so they were easily accessible for snacks.  
• adding more water to my day.
• setting a timer and walking 2-3 min every hour

The extended meal planning, helped too.  I also researched replacement recipes for my family’s favorite recipes.  And finally I began making sure I was getting half my body weight in ounces of water.  Eventually, I began adding steps to my day.  

All of these supporting habits helped me reach my weight loss goal and I have kept everyone of them since reaching my goal.  I entered into this knowing this was a lifetime change and not a diet.

I wanted healthy habits that didn’t overwhelm me or set me up for failure.

Use Healthy Habit Success Tracking to Increase Consistency

Okay… this is the BIG ONE!  The best way to change a habit AND use it to help you with consistency is to track the habit.  

See, when you see the success in the form of the habit completion it releases happy juice in your brain.  

We want that happy juice.  

This is the same happy juice your brain gets when you eat sugar and we all know how addicting that is!  

I don’t know about you, but I would much rather be addicted to healthy habits and tracking than sugar that puts the fluff on the rear as my 13 year old son says.  hahah

Let’s Close This Out…

Weight loss consistency and habits go hand in hand.  

Just like the Mindset we discussed last week.   You can check that out here. 

Unlike Mindset, habits can be much quicker to both see the results and feel the outcomes.  

Where I am still working on some mindset issues, my habits are firmly in place and keep me on track 90% of the time.  

The 3 initial steps you can take with habits are:  

1. Get to Know Your Food Habits 
2. Create Small Supporting Healthy Habits 
3. Use Healthy Habit Success Tracking to Increase Your Consistency  

These initial steps will get you up and running on your 100 pound weight loss journey!  

If you’re ready to take your weight loss journey to a new level and get some awesome support as you make changes to your habits, make sure you join my Facebook Support Group Mastering Weight Loss Losing 100 Pounds for Women Over 40.  

I can’t wait to see ya on the inside!