Hitting the Reset Button

I’ve had a stressful month. I had a minor accident with my brand new Audi which has required dealing with three insurance companies and a body shop. A new house is being built next door to mine which not only causes all kinds of noise disruption while I work from my home office but has also been causing damage to my property and the landscaping I’ve laboured over the last few years. I’ve traveled to Toronto twice for business in a month, completely throwing off my eating and working schedule. I’ve had three family visits, which while nice, also get me out of my routine. I had a knee injury that took me off the slopes and out of my ski training.

I feel like everything has gone off the rails. And as usually happens to me the first thing to go is my diet. I have not been following my new habits and thus feel heavy, puffy, and frustrated.

It’s time to hit the reset button and get back on track. Before adding any further habits I need to revisit the four habits I have already introduced and make sure I am following them closely.

So to revisit I am going to focus on the four habits I’ve introduced so far:

1) Eliminate nutrient lacking junk food from my diet, specifically chips, candy, chocolate, and pop

2) Stop eating when I’m full

3) Enjoy eating well at restaurants, making it a game to choose the healthiest options

4) Not eat when the TV is on

It’s time to make my health the priority it should be.

Mindless Munching

I generally eat well most of the day. With work and other commitments I’m usually too busy to think about snacking. Where things really come off the rails is in the evening when I’m chilling out after my busy day.

That’s when the TV comes on and I can get into full couch potato mode. If movies are better with popcorn than surely TV is better with snacks! Even though I generally don’t keep junk food or trigger foods in the house, it’s amazing what I’ll find to snack on – almonds, raisins, cereal, crackers… Even healthy foods aren’t good for me if I’m eating them out of habit rather than hunger.

So my new habit was this simple: no eating if the TV was on. I expected to do less evening eating. What surprised me was how much less TV I watched! Instead I caught up on my local newspapers at mealtime and eliminated most of my evening snacking. Even my living room stayed tidier. I found if I was hungry enough I would go to the kitchen and have a proper snack but 90% of the time I didn’t bother, telling me that my evening snacking has been driven by needs other than hunger.