No Motivation? What about Habits?

Yesterday I told you how motivated I am right now.  I am feeling determined.  I am telling myself that I will get these pesky, last pounds off no matter what.  I am still motivated today.  I feel the need to tell you that because I know that at any moment Motivation could decide to move on to someone else's house and I will be left mourning the loss.  It's happened before and it's not pretty.  I'm not a doomsday person at all.  I like to think of the positive but I also believe in being prepared.

Also, if you are not feeling the motivation that I am right now, I want you to feel that you have somewhere to turn.  I want you to turn to your friend, Habits.  Habits is one of those friends that you can find on either shoulder.  You know, sometimes he is wearing the red costume and sometimes he is wearing his halo and wings.  Even though he can be confusing I still consider him a friend. I have helped Habits change his life and he has helped me change mine.  In my life he now spends more time in the halo and wings than with the horns on his head.

My habits have changed drastically in my life.  When I started trying to lose weight I had an uphill battle.  We ate ice cream or frozen custard almost every single day in my house.  That was a habit.  It was a habit that all of us came to know as normal so when I tried to change my life, my entire family was in a bit of shock.  It was not easy but I conquered that habit.  It got to a point where one day Bryan mentioned going out for ice cream and I had to think really hard about that last time that we did that.  It had been weeks.  That was a sign of true progress.  We had made a new habit.  Ice cream was now a treat in our house, not an expectation.  On most days ice cream doesn't enter my mind anymore.  When I notice that we have eaten ice cream more than 2 days in a row I am conscious of it.  I know how easily that bad habit can creep back into my life and I've worked too hard to get here to let that happen.

Portions are another habit that have changed in my life.  I now know what a proper portion is.  I can say that when I learned that a proper portion of meat is 3 ounces and that's about the size of my palm, I was shocked.  I had been eating twice or even three times that amount for years and didn't have any idea.  I also didn't know the difference between 3 and 9 ounces of meat to begin with.  You could have served me a 9 ounce steak and told me it was 3 ounces without be batting an eye.

My life has changed. My habits have changed.  Most of the time I have good habits. I could go on telling you about all of them but then what would I blog about for the rest of the year? When my motivation weans I need to lean on those good habits because I cannot trust that Motivation will always be around.  If I trusted only on Motivation I wouldn't be able to lose all of the weight and I certainly would not be able to keep it off.

If you are not motivated today, look at your habits.  What habits do you have that are good ones?  Lean on them.  Listen to them.  Be conscious of them.  What habits do you have that are bad ones?  Focus on one of them at a time and change them.  There is no one thing that will keep you healthy.  It's a number of things.  These 2 are big ones and used together can be very powerful.

Until tomorrow,
Corinna

"I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect." -Romans 12:1-2