If you want to lose weight permanently, paying attention to your daily habits is very important. So lets talk more about our daily habits and how to successfully improve them over time, so they support your weight lose and you succeed. You know, that this is the time you are going to make it. You already know a lot about losing weight. It is all about the habits that are often very deeply ingrained in our minds. You also got little bit scared by my previous article about what people can expect to face down the road if they don’t manage to improve their lifestyle and loose weight permanently. And you are on your way to succeed in losing weight permanently.
Changing habits without changing a structure of habit
I will show you now some concrete examples of switching the most common habits from bad non supportive to your weight loss to good ones, supportive ones. The goal here is to not delete the habit completely, but improve it. The habit will stay there, but it will become a healthy, weight loss supportive one.
For example our typical morning visit to the coffee shop. Instead of having your favorite Danish, you will buy unsweetened yogurt with fresh fruits on it. If the problem you have with this is, that that yogurt is more expensive than that Danish, get over it. There is a reason why it is so.
Yogurt with fresh fruits is loaded with nutrients and it’s good for your health. Compare it to the Danish or cookie you usually had. They are mass produced cheap calories. And you are getting more ripped of by buying those than buying real foods. If price is the problem, buy your white yogurt and berries in your local grocery store.
But, we are here trying to keep your old habit, while improving it. And that habit is – going to the coffee shop every morning and getting your coffee and food. Than, have your coffee or late without sugar in it. Have it just like they serve it to you. You can put some milk or cream in it. And that’s it. The habit stayed there, you still go to the coffee shop, you smell the fresh smell of roasted, blended coffee, but what you are getting there is not garbage foods. Now, you are getting some real stuff. Overpriced, but real.
Don’t worry about the price right now. Loosing weight, improving your health and energy levels are priceless.
I will show you next few extra examples of switching habits from unsupportive to supportive without changing the structure.
Ice cream for home made smoothies
Who doesn’t like ice cream! I personally love ice cream. And it is actually not that bad for you. Since beside a lot of sugar and lots of fat, it also contains protein. But, if you are serious abut loosing your weight, you need to change ice cream habit. The problem is not really to have a lot of ice cream occasionally.
The big problem is, that ice cream habit means having a little bit every evening after dinner regularly. And I know a lot of people and I was one of them that did this. They have religiously their two scoops of cherry Garcia ice cream every evening. This way, they put huge extra amounts of sugar into their body over long periods of time. And that beside a dangers of sugar means extra calories and weight gain over time.
I am not going to discuss the possibility of having sugar free ice cream as an option here. The stuff they put into these kind of ice creams to make it sweet tasting is a dangerous chemical in my world. And there are not enough studies done yet to dismiss it’s dangerous effects on our body. And I have a feeling, that they will come out soon. So please stay away from sugar free ice cream. Plus plastic sugar makes you crave sweet stuff even more. That’s already proven.
So how do you switch this habit?
Remember, the structure must stay the same. You will have something sweet creamy tasting after the dinner. But it won’t be ice cream. It will be blended smoothie made from unsweetened frozen berries, some banana, milk and maybe some coconut milk. All ingredients are naturally free of added sugar. They taste sweet, but the sugar is naturally occurring in berries and bananas, plus there is only about one third of sugar and much less than amount of sugar in the ice cream. And it’s simple to make. The key is to have the right ingredients ready.
Next time you go to the grocery store, buy some frozen berries – strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, if they have it buy also some frozen mangoes and other fruit. Get also some milk, fresh bananas, and unsweetened coconut milk. It is ok to buy a whole milk and use whole coconut milk. The fat is not a problem in your diet, sugar is. And fat can actually help you loose fat. We will talk about that later.
Now make sure, you have all the ingredients ready at home and when the ice cream time comes, pull them out, put them into a blender and make a delicious, weight loss supporting, health promoting smoothie.
Here is a more detailed description how to make these ice cream substituting smoothies. Enjoy! They are delicious!
Crackers and chips for nuts and fruit
Crackers are not good for you. Even those claiming that are made of whole grains. They often say – guilt reduced crackers or something like that so you don’t feel bad eating them. Same with any kind of chips. They are high on trans fats. Yes, any kind of commercially made cracker of chip, even if it claims to be healthy for you, contains besides lots of empty carbohydrates, lots of fat and trans fats. And this commercially made stuff make us fat and very unhealthy by causing inflammation in our body.
The biggest problem with chips and crackers is, that once we start eating them, we cannot stop. We have few, than we have a sip of coke or beer and than we have few more. And sooner we know it, the bag is empty. And few beers or cokes are gone with it.
Did you ever realize, that when you start eating chips or crackers, they only taste great in the beginning? After about 5 or 7 pieces, they don’t taste that great like before. Your taste buds are satisfied with first few crackers, than it just begins to be something to do with your hands and mouth while staring into the box. You keep eating them, because you want to keep your mouth and arms comfortably busy. And you end up eating a lot of them.
Subsequently, your sleep suffers by all those chemicals and preservatives and empty carbohydrates you put into your body. And on top of that, you consumed huge amount of empty calories, so your body weight can keep growing over time. Not, exactly the thing you are looking for.
Losing weight, empty carbohydrates and growth hormone
Overloading your body with carbohydrates in the evening has another negative effect on you weight and overall health. When you eat too much empty carbs in the evening and go to sleep, you are automatically stumping the natural healing mechanism of your body – growth hormone release.
Growth hormone releases naturally when we sleep. It’s responsible for a repair of our body and for healthy maintenance of muscle mass. And Guess what? It’s release is closely connected to healthy body weight. When you eat too much carbohydrates before you go to bed, your blood sugar raises, insulin is released and it literally plugs the Human Growth Hormone canal by it’s inflammatory effect. And let me just tell you that, if you are trying to lose weight permanently, you can’t afford that.
Lose weight permanently with this habit change and use it as an example for other habits
So what is the crackers/chips solution? The solution is in the trick. Take a little plate and put 7 pieces of crackers on it. Have various fruits ready and some nuts. It’s ok if they are salted for now. Now mix those seven pieces of crackers with handful of nuts and keep it on the plate. On another plate, put 1 apple, 1 orange and 1 peach. Or whatever you have. Having 3 apples on the plate is fine if you don’t have other variety of fruits. Brew some caffeine free herbal tea.
Now take those two plates and put them on the table where you usually sit. It’s most often the coffee table in front of tv and your sofa. Now, don’t sit down yet on your comfortable sofa. Go back to the kitchen, take the biggest glass you have and pour hot freshly brewed herbal tea in it. Take it to the living room and put it on your coffee table right next to your heathy snacks. Now sit down.
You have snacks in front of you and they are healthy, nutritious and free of aded sugar and flour. And you are going to snack on them. And don’t get offended now, but your own laziness will not let you get up for a bad refill of chips or crackers. If you are ambitious enough and you finished all your snacks in front of you and you actually got up for refill, make sure, you have extra fruits and nuts ready for snacking. The key is to grab the good, healthy, nutritious snacks.
Don’t worry about quantity for now, just eat as much as you like of these good stuff. But quality is crucially important. And preparation is a must. You always want to have nuts, fruit and herbal tea ready. With this kind of change, you still keep your mouth and hands busy by taking only 7 chips, eating nuts, fruits and sipping unsweetened herbal tea. But you will be putting mainly the good heathy stuff into your body.
And your natural Human Growth Hormone production won’t be stumped.
Sweets for fruits
Sweets are dangerous! I am not exaggerating. They really are. And you need to get them out of you life. Period!
Not only you are gaining weight by eating them, you are exposing yourself into other dangers like cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
Several recent studies show, that cancer actually feeds on sugar and spreads faster by being fertilized by it and that dementia and Alzheimer’s are high blood sugar related diseases. You already read about it in my previous article.
So it is crucially important to brake the habit of eating sweets in your life. How do you do that? First, you look all around your house, fridge, cupboards and drawers. Collect all the sweet stuff you find and throw it away. Don’t donate it! Why would you donate this poison? For somebody else to eat it? To a child? Nobody wants their kids to eat this garbage. Just throw it away without any guilt.
I personally would rather eat death spiders if I was starving to death, than eat a candy bar. So now, when your house is all cleared of the sweets, promise yourself you will not buy any other sweets anymore. Good.
Next time you go to the grocery store, buy a lot of fresh colorful, sweet fresh fruits. And also vegetables. And when you are having a sweet tooth, just grab one of these fresh fruits instead. I frequently eat the whole pound of fresh figs, strawberries or raspberries when I feel like having something sweet. They taste sweet, they have lots of fiber and they are good for you. They satisfy and fill you up. It’s quite a powerful habit to develop. It will serve you your whole life. Less sugar means, better and healthier life!
To lose weight permanently you don’t have to brake a bad habit completely, you can just switch a structure of this habit. Yes, you need to use your knowledge and intelligence, but you already know that almond is better for you than potato chip. Happy modifying and losing.
Related articles
>>How to lose weight permanently – part 1
>>How to lose weight permanently – part 2
>>How to lose weight permanently – part 3