Old Habits Die Hard

This whole journey for me is about developing new habits. BETTER HABITS. Yesterday morning I blogged about how I was getting into the habit of exercise. I am also getting into the habit of drinking my water, writing my goals, tracking my WW points; all very positive things. But as my title said, old habits die hard.

One of my really bad habits is eating out too often. While we have been doing better, last night was one of those nights that I slipped back into old habits. I got home from work, tired and hungry. I had been snacking throughout the day but hadn’t had a proper lunch due to meetings. I could have easily thrown something together for us; breakfast for dinner, smart ones microwave meal, soup and salad but instead I asked Jon the dreaded question “What do you feel like for dinner?” 

This question usually leads to a drawn out discussion of all of our options. This time around it was even more drawn out because we were trying to decide on something that would work for WW. First we had to figure out how many points we had left for the day, then what we felt like eating and finally, what we COULD eat and stay on program. What a pain in the ass! So we ended up choosing Wendy’s and both had a chicken sandwich and chili. Was it good? Yeah it was fine. Was it worth the hassle? Not even remotely. I should have made something for us out of our fully stocked fridge. Old habits die hard.

After the fact I was thinking about it and I started to feel disappointed in myself. Not that I had eaten fast food because I made food choices that still worked and kept me on plan. I was disappointed that we had fallen into that bad habit. I think it comes down to a few things;

·         Poor Planning

·         Allowing myself to get too hungry

·         Laziness

·         Being self-indulgent

So instead of falling into another bad habit and beating myself up over it, I decided to look for some solutions. I actually went ahead and cooked up our dinner for the next few nights. I had a butternut squash on hand so I roasted it, put half aside to make soup and made the other half into a burrito filling with veggies and black beans. I packed myself a snack for work so that I wouldn’t be so hungry at the end of the day. I even added a goal to my list:

“I prepare healthy and convenient meals every day that energize and nourish my body”

Will I always be perfect? No but having a plan is half the battle. Sticking to it is the other half.

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.”
― Jim Ryun