By Alexander Germanis
With every new year comes the omni-expected New Year’s Resolution. It probably comes as no surprise that the most cited resolutions are to lose weight, exercise more, eat better, or some combination or variation of those.
In fact, from year to year, these “living healthier” resolutions constitute a full half of all the resolutions made. But just like with the Bureau of Labor’s employment statistics, a lot of those resolution numbers are the same people being counted more than once.
In other words, many if not most of those people make the same resolution over and over.
For them, living up to those self-made promises may prove too difficult to execute.
While living a healthier life may not necessarily be an easy endeavor, it need not be so seemingly unattainable a feat that it is abandoned by the time bars are dying their beer green for St. Paddy’s.
Recognizing the correlation between mind and body is the first step toward living a healthier life. Making a resolution is, after all, a mental act; carrying out that resolution, therefore, requires some brain power as well.
Persistence of Change
There is a word many in the healthcare industry consider to be a “four-letter word”: diet. I’ve lost track of how many doctors and nurses I have seen cringe at the very sound of it, and subsequently launch into a diatribe about how one should not diet, but instead implement a lifestyle change.
A diet implies a person is going to change their eating habits temporarily. Once they see the weight come off, they often return to their old habits and the weight comes back. In fact, research has found that 95 percent of dieters regain their lost weight.
Losing weight and keeping it off requires lasting change – an alteration in how one eats and, frankly, lives. While instituting a lifestyle change certainly requires persistence, one can persist better when the change itself is enjoyable.
Dr. Monique Tello, a practicing physician and clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School says, “Any lifestyle change has to be meaningful and pleasurable. For these changes to be most effective, people have to want to continue them for the rest of their lives.”
Therein lies the rub: finding the right motivation for lifestyle change. The more concrete reward of losing weight and looking good, however, is often a fleeting one. Finding a eudaimonic goal might prove more effective, states psychiatrist Srini Pillay, MD. “Eudaimonia refers to a sense of meaning and purpose that contributes to overall well-being,” he says. “Connecting your lifestyle goals to eudaimonia rewards (or E-rewards) may help motivate you even more. Ask yourself how you will enhance your sense of meaning and purpose.” Are you living healthier so you can spend more time with your loved ones? Are you eating less in order to put some extra money aside to help feed the less fortunate? What will motivate you on a deeper level?
Mnemonics and New Associations
The philosophies of lifestyle change notwithstanding, the daily acts required to change how one eats and lives are a necessary step toward bringing about true positive personal change.
Change can prove exceedingly difficult when our eating habits are, well, habits. As reported in the journal Biological Psychiatry, “Decisions about where, when, what, and how much to eat are not merely reflexive responses to food-relevant stimuli or to changes in energy status. Rather, feeding behavior is modulated by various contextual factors and by previous experiences.”
Simply put, we mentally associate much of our eating actions based on external influences. For example, when we go to the movie theater, we are surrounded by the smell of popcorn and the sight of others drinking soda and eating candy. This makes a mnemonic connection in the hippocampus of our brains, linking the act of watching a movie with consuming salty and sweet snacks. Consequently, even the act of watching a movie or television show at home mentally triggers a drive to consume similar foods.
The trick then lies in making new associations. Whatever healthier snacks you may enjoy, start employing them instead of the junk when the film starts to roll. Consider, for example, a collection of high-protein, low-carbohydrate nuts instead of candy.
Or you can start a new, pleasant pastime you can easily associate with healthier eating. Going for a weekly walk with your family members while enjoying a bottle of ice water is just one idea. The act of sharing time with your loved ones will quickly become associated with staying healthily hydrated.
Substitute and Adapt
The medical practice is no stranger to the concept of weaning someone off of an unhealthy substance. When a lifelong smoker switches to nicotine gum in order to put away the cigarettes once and for all, this is known as replacement or substitution therapy.
Substitution therapy can be implemented in similar fashion with our food choices as well. Finding healthier foods and drinks similar to the ones you typically ingest are a way to cut sugars, fats, and unwanted carbohydrates from your daily consumption.
Again, the name of the game is persistence. Many websites, health gurus, and dieticians will spout list after list of replacements for your favorite snacks. For instance, many will suggest wrapping a sandwich with lettuce instead of freshly baked Italian bread or using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream. These are great substitutions, providing you aren’t constantly pining for the sour cream while you’re eating the yogurt. If you can’t be happy with the change you’ve made in your lifestyle, you will either not maintain that change or you will resent making the change and be unhappy for as long as you’re living it. That can be just as unhealthy as not making the change in the first place.
Find healthier substitutions with which you can be happy and which you can make your new normal. Everyone is different and can be happy with different alternatives.
I, for one, love sweets, soda, and salty snacks. When I decided to cut my intake of each, I opted for things that could still satisfy my cravings without being as bad as the things on which I was cutting back. For instance, instead of cracking open a Mountain Dew, I pour a cold lemonade (made with real lemons). The sugars and carbs are both far less than what’s in a Mountain Dew and I still get a refreshing, satisfying treat. I also found a brand of sugar-free, off-brand Jell-o that doesn’t have an unpleasant aftertaste. Both of these substitutes have helped me trim inches off the waist and maintain a happier disposition.
Remember, just as in replacement or substitution therapy, the name of the game is not switching from something bad to something great; it’s about switching from something bad to something less bad. Nicotine gum is still not good for you, but it’s a step in the right direction. Ask yourself what step or steps you can take that you can not only continue to take but will also make you happy you’re taking them.
Eat. Live.
There’s a saying: Eat to live, don’t live to eat. While this axiom’s sentiment is worth following, the statement glosses over the fact that eating certain foods can certainly be one of the great joys of living. Eating Styrofoam hockey pucks (read: rice cakes) and putting tofu in everything is not something you should do unless you truly enjoy eating those things. When you’re unhappy with what you consume, that unhappiness will certainly carry over into other aspects of your life.
When you are happy with your new eating choices, that can spur you on to exercise more often, which will then encourage you to eat better, and so on. Even if the number on the scale does not come crashing down in the first few weeks of living your new lifestyle (see this month’s “Health by the Numbers”), you can and will experience other positives. Your clothes might start feeling a little looser, your self-esteem might get a boost, your energy levels might increase, and your sleep might improve.
Eating positively will be a case of a success that breeds success. The happier you are with your food choices, the more likely you will make better choices in other aspects of your life. While you shouldn’t live to eat, you should eat positively to live positively.
