Forming a new Habit- Inspired by the book, ‘The Power of Habit- Charles Duhigg’

I have recently begun reading this awesome book, ‘The Power of Habit- Charles Duhigg’ and reading just the first few pages made me wonder how cool human brains are, especially the part where the habits are formed and stored, the Basal Ganglia.

Charles Duhigg has documented about a century of work about habits and given the valuable extract in the book.

The first few pages blew my mind and got me to view my own life and see how my habits are formed. I noticed that a lot of good and bad things I do are hard wired into me.

This gave me so much insight that I figured if these bad habits can hold me back, it’s probably time to change them and make new ones, using this new found knowledge!

Although I need to change a lot of habits to achieve difference kind of goals, let’s begin with one.

One of the most difficult things I struggle with is being overweight.

As most overweight people do, I know that I eat wrong and that I don’t exercise regularly.

For fitness, here are the habits that I believe I have to change:

1. Eat clean.

Here are the problems I face:

a. Eating junk food.

I introspected that I tend to eat junk, out of stress or when I am too hungry. At such moments, I don’t tend to make healthy choices or even think straight.

Solution: I will be carrying my lunch so that there is no choice to be made when it’s time to eat and second is to never let myself go too hungry that I get cranky.

This should help me make better choices; which I in turn want to convert into a healthy habit!

As a reward, I will strike the calendar for each ‘good’ day and eat a cheat meal per week, only if I perform well at least 5 days a week!

Sounds good to me! Also, I’ll make sure I document each day about my progress.

b. Crankiness and inability to cook food.

I have noticed that I get really cranky when I am too hungry and also that I am unable to cook, especially when I am hungry.

To short circuit this, I have tried to automate most of the food that I am going to eat and I plan to eat it at regular intervals, to avoid going cranky with hunger and jumping mindlessly on junk food.

I have also begun learning how to cook slowly and I make sure I never cook when I have become a tiger with hunger. :D

I plan to deal with all my cravings with the reward of a cheat meal that I can avail, guilt free, if I perform well all week!

Now that’s gotta be interesting! :)

2. Exercise regularly.

Now the exercise itself is no longer that difficult as my trainer has asked me to do weight training instead of the boring cardio.

Believe me, even if you are overweight, weight training feels manly and Godlike! Try it if you haven’t!

The problem with me is that of waking up early morning to go to gym. This is a little difficult because I sleep late; and that’s because I have to work late, because I start late. Now that’s a vicious circle!

To break this loop, I have planned to sleep at 12:30 am (that’s evening for me) and get a good night’s sleep.

And like food, I’ll keep a sleep log well.

And to make sure I sleep on time, I have also set a ‘sleep alarm’ to remind me to sleep!

Well, I haven’t been able to find a suitable reward for this one, but if you are reading this, please feel free to suggest.

Let’s see how this turns out.

Hoping for the best. I’ll keep you posted! :)