How
long should you stick with the task of developing a new habit………one hour, one
day, one week?
According to a men’s health professor I spoke to this week it
generally takes about four to five weeks for a new habit to kick in.
This
wasn’t the result of some longitudinal international research study, it was a
personal comment that came out in a chat where we discovered that although we
have different world views, we both like eating cheese too much for our own
good.
One
of the benefits of my global focus on men and boys issues I get to meet all
sorts of interesting people from professors in men’s health to the world’s
strongest men (but more about that another day).
Back
to this personal chat with the Professor. I don’t know how it happened but one
minute into our first conversation we discovered that while we both have a
penchant for cheese and nuts, he can take or leave the chocolate biscuits (no
wonder we have different worldviews!)
But
it being New Year, we are both attempting to lose a bit of weight and the good
Professor said that for him it generally takes four-to-five weeks of sticking
with a new routine before it kicks in and becomes habit.
I
have a similar experience, though not sure I can put a timescale on it as I
don’t think I’ve done a particularly good job of sustaining any kind of healthy
diet or exercise routine for more than a few months max at any time in the past
25 years.
The
routine I am aware of is that prior to trying to lose weight I am generally not
focussed on my body. I do a great job of ignoring the problem so it is of no
conscious concern to me. Put simply, I ain’t bothered.
What
happens when I start to try and lose weight is that I become very body
conscious and so I keep looking at my body and going “Oh my God, I’ve been
dieting for like nearly two hours now and NOTHING has changed, it’s SOOOOO
UNFAIR”.
And
then I get depressed and buy a pack of biscuits because I deserve a little
treat for all the hard dieting I’ve been doing.
This time it took until
today, day six of the new regime, for the negative little monkey on my back to
show up. It was up before me this morning telling me I was wasting my time
before I’d even opened my eyes.
I listened to it for a while and nearly lost
the will to lose weight, but I think I’ve silenced the monkey for now. From a
transactional analysis perspective (which I talked about in yesterday's post) you could say my parent is having a word with my child! And my adult self is certainly up for
seeing what happens when I make it to the Professor’s fabled four-to-five week
landmark (though as he doesn’t have a thing about choccy biccies, his opinion
may not be that reliable).
DAY
SIX NOTES
WEIGHT: 14 stone 9lb (healthy range 9 stone 7lb to 12 stone 12lb)
WAIST: 36-39 inches/94-99 cms (depends if I'm breathing in or out)
BMI: 28.7 (healthy range 18.5 to 25)
ACTION: Ran and walked 3 miles, drank lots of water, stayed off the biscuits,
snacked on fruit and a homemade seedy flapjack, did 12 1 "pull downs"
Tomorrow: The highlights of my first week losing weight
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