Baby Steps to Curbing Bad Habits

It is so hard to change the way we do things. It is so hard to break out of bad habit, especially when that bad habit feels good. I think my worst nutritional bad habit, at the moment, is ordering delivery at night, and eating the whole thing -- even if I'm not particularly hungry.

Ending this bad habit is far harder than one would think. I KNOW, intellectually, that ordering pizza or Chinese all the time is stupid. It's fattening, it's expensive, and I don't need it. You don't have to tell me all the reasons it's a bad idea -- I KNOW it's a bad idea. And it is SIMPLE to change: just don't order delivery at night anymore.

Oh, how simple indeed. Alas, "simple" and "easy" are not the same. Getting a law degree is straightforward: just follow the steps. Take the LSATs, apply to law school, pick one, and attend it for three(ish) years. Do the work. Boom, you have your JD. Is it simple? Yes. Is it EASY? Hell no.

I think that in order to stop doing what I KNOW is bad for me, I have to dig deeper. I have to get to the EMOTIONAL reason why I do what I do. Is it because pizza tastes good? Well, yeah, sure, but that's a bit too superficial. I think I am really eating because I am bored. Because I don't want to do my legal work, and I am looking for anything that can allow me a short reprieve. Perhaps because my good friends have left town and I don't really have a lot of people to hang out with, so I pass the time by eating pizza. I don't know.

But whatever the reason is, I didn't succumb to my bad habits tonight. Nope. I wanted a pizza. I love my pizza. I was bored. All the reasons above. And yet I knew that I didn't need it and I would only feel a momentary burst of pleasure, followed by hours or days of guilt and sluggishness. So I made some chicken breast instead. I ate that and washed it down with my super veggie drink. And ya know what? It was tasty. And satisfying. And I DIDN'T spend ten dollars and consume 2,000 calories at 11 p.m. (I think the chicken breast and drink came out to about 350 calories.)

So, yeah. I don't know if I'm going to be posting a lot on this fitness blog, but I probably will whenever I am struggling -- which I am now. The good news is that I am about the same weight as I was a year ago. I haven't lost, but I haven't gained either. So that's good news.