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Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle! |
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| DietBlog.net: The ramblings of a diet phreak! | ||||
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Old Eating Habits Die HardThe other day a box of crackers was sitting out on the kitchen counter. I love cheese and crackers, so I got out some cheese and went to sit by the TV and ate a bunch of cheese and crackers. Oh Crud. Even after dieting for over 3 years, I sometimes fall back into my old habits.This may sound unrelated, but it's not...so please bear with me: I was reading a book recently called "Total Immersion Swimming". It's a book about how to improve your swimming form so you can swim faster with less energy. It talks about how your muscles build neural pathways for movements that you repeat many times over, so that the muscle can repeat the action without you having to think about it. They call it muscle memory. It's how we walk, or ride a bike, or even type on a computer without thinking about each motion. It's extremely difficult to erase muscle memories and replace them with a new ways of moving muscles. I think this applies to eating habits as well. There must be neural pathways for bad eating habits that I reinforced for the past 20 years, and 3 years of good eating habits haven't erased those old habits. The Total Immersion Book talks about using drills to replace the old muscle memories with new ones. Drills are ways of moving your body through a motion in a way that it doesn't recognize as the old motion, so you can build new nueral pathways without fighting the old memories. Here are some eating habit "drills" I came up with. The Total Immersion book says that every time you feel yourself slipping into your old incorrect habits, that you should go back to the drills! * Put the crackers away (out of sight out of mind). * Don't buy the crackers in the first place (or, if you do buy crakcers for other family members, buy a brand that you don't like!) * Have a cup of hot tea instead of the crackers. * Find something healthy to munch on instead...such as celery sticks dipped in ranch dressing or cream cheese. * Get out of the kitchen! * Put a lock on the snack cupboard so that you have to actually think twice about grabbing a snack. * Find something else to keep yourself busy. I definitely do better on my diet when I am busy and not bored! * Go brush your teeth. * Have a piece of chewing gum. * Repeat things over and over in your mind like "I am not really hungry, I don't want those crackers, I hate the feeling of being stuffed, I am stronger than those crackers, those crackers won't make me happy", or whatever silly things pop into your head that might help you resist the temptation! Blog entry for: 2005-09-23 11:01:50 Home Page / Diet Info | Blog Directory |
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