Habit Transformation Challenge: Your First Habit
Prepared by: Dr. Kushairi Zuradi
We are using the slow change method to make a lifelong impact in your life. Follow this habit transformation basics first prior to starting your challenges.
This is our first habit challenge – to record what we eat.
There is a lot of value in the actual act of recording what we eat.
It’s a behavior that truly takes seconds to minutes a day to do, but each time you pull out your app or diary, you remind yourself of your healthy living desires and strategies.
For the next week, I challenge you to ‘record what you eat’. There is a lot of value in the actual act of recording what you eat. It’s a behavior that truly takes seconds to minutes a day to do, but each and every time you pull out your app or diary, you remind yourself of your healthy living desires and strategies.
It’s through regular and conscious effects and reminders that new habits are formed, and any behavior that helps you to keep your goals and intentions at the forefront of your busy mind is a good one.
The point of this habit is awareness, not change. What I don’t like about food logging is when it becomes punitive or judgmental. Food diaries aren’t there to tell you what you are or aren’t allowed. A food diary is simply a source of information to help inform your decisions, as well as an incredibly powerful habit-building tool. So this is NOT a calorie counting habit. ↓
The point of this habit is awareness, not change.
What I don’t like about food logging is when it becomes punitive or judgmental.
Food diaries aren’t there to tell you what you are or aren’t allowed. A food diary is simply a source of information to help inform your decisions, as well as an incredibly powerful habit-building tool.
So this is NOT a calorie counting habit.
Recording what you eat isn’t meant to replace your dietary strategy; it’s there to supplement it.
Whether you’ve been intermittently fasting, following a Paleo or low-carb plan, or even just doing your own thing, food logging, regardless of its imperfections, oversights, and shortcomings, may be just the thing you need to figure out why you might be stuck.
Making it yours
Choose how often you feel comfortable writing down what you eat. Is it for just one meal a day? Two? Just the snacks? Or all meals? Any amount will do.
Choose how you’ll write down what you eat.
On a paper journal? In your progress log? On a food logging app?
You won’t have to share any of your notes. They’re only for you.
The first step is to scale the habit to something you are 90-100% confident you can do for 6 days of the week. You might want to track specific meals (just breakfasts, lunches, or dinners), or decide that journaling on paper is easier than an app for you.
Have one day off per week from completing the habit.
This is very important: whatever you pick, it should only take you one to two minutes to complete each day.
Look for an event you can use as a reminder to write down what you eat: after your morning coffee, getting to work, after your workout, getting home from work, when an alarm goes off on your phone, whatever you want.
Just pick a pre-existing habit to use as your reminder.
TO DO: Create your personal version of the habit to commit to this challenge!
If all went well for a week, and you didn’t struggle or skip the habit for more than a day, I recommend that you lengthen the habit another week. If you’ve struggled, keep it the same as last week or make it even easier.
For example, if you’ve just been writing down what you’ve ate for breakfast, then extend that to lunches too.
Or if you’ve been writing down everything you ate on paper, try an online food app to see a more detailed report of your diary.
Never make too big an adjustment so that it becomes too difficult.
This slow change process of expanding the habit a little at a time helps overcome the resistance of the mind to change and discomfort.
Each step isn’t difficult, so your mind doesn’t rebel much. Gradually the habit becomes your new normal and you can expand a bit more, pushing your comfort zone a little at a time.
When you are ready, move on to the next habit challenge. All these challenges will eventually will add up into your new lifestyle.
They have a simplified logging feature where you can scan barcodes, save meals and recipes for easy and fast food tracking.
At Sihatologi, we have adapted this easy feature in all our healthy recipe guides to help you track your meals faster and easier so that you can focus on other important things and making food tracking a non-stress habit.
We have prepared the healthy recipes e-book in Bahasa Malaysia too!
All our recipes have been logged into MyFitnessPal database so that you don’t have to add it manually. Time saver!
Download your MyFitnessPal app today and try scanning the barcodes in your healthy recipe e-book you downloaded from us previously.
Download this MyFP app guide that we have prepared for you so that you can optimize this free app function to help your food tracking habit.
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