36-31 Days | Find Your Own Voice

We have only about a month left together--at least for this part of the transformation.  Instead of ME blogging for you, it's time for you to blog and journal for yourself!  Take time to go back and review the posts since January 2.  Write about all that has changed and happened in your life.  If you feel stuck, go back and visit the reasons why you wanted to start this in the first place.  If you're willing, share your thoughts or you blog in the comments with us so we can encourage one another.

KEEP GOING!!!!

37 Days | Change is Uncomfortable

Making change is uncomfortable--not just for some of us, but for ALL of us.  It might start out easy, but overtime, we want to gravitate toward our old habits.

Remember, even the smallest changes change yield big results.

For example, we decided that financially it was killing us to order beverages from restaurants.  We are Starbucks addicts and we never go out to eat without order drinks.  Today Dan & I told ourselves we are no longer a family that orders beverages.  (And, we have a $50 Starbucks card that is going to burn a hole in our pocket for awhile!)  We need to change this habit.  It's a small thing.  We can do this.  It will take practice though.  We will need to fill to-go cups at home with our Starbucks brewed java!

We can handle a few small changes at once.  So, we are also not a family who ever orders something at a drive-thru.  Period.

Now, remember from yesterday's post--we don't allow ourselves to break our new habit even once.  "Just one" does hurt.  If nothing else, it's hurts your ability to trust yourself with your new habit.  And you (we) are someone who can be trusted.

So, what small steps of change can you take this week?

38 Days | Compelling Thoughts on Habits

I found this article and thought many of these points were very, very good.  Since we are all learning and practicing new habits, these concepts might be helpful.

36 Lessons I’ve Learned About Habits

By Leo Babauta

I’ve learned these lessons the hard way.

I struggled to quit smoking in the early 2000s, failing seven times before finally succeeding in late 2005. I struggled with exercise habits, with changing my horrible eating habits, with waking earlier and being more productive and getting out of debt and simplifying my life.

I failed a lot, and still do. It was through those failures that these hard-fought lessons emerged, and so I don’t resent any of the failures. I recommend this attitude.

I’ve taught habits to thousands of people, in addition to changing dozens of my own. Teaching what I’ve learned to others taught me even more.

And still I’m learning. That’s the fun part.

Changing habits is one of the most fundamental skills you can learn, because it allows you to reshape your life. To reshape who you are. That’s truly transformational.

I share these lessons not as Commandments from On High, but as things you might try, in your journey of change and learning. Try them one or two at a time, so you’re not overwhelmed. Come back to this list after you’ve done that.

I hope they help.

1. When you make a small change, your ‘normal’ adjusts.Imagine that you’re used to a whole set of conditions — if you deviate from those conditions very much, you will be uncomfortable. Going to live in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language, don’t know anyone, aren’t used to the food, don’t understand the customs, don’t have the same kind of home you’re used to … this can be very difficult. But if you make one tiny change, it’s not very uncomfortable. And after a month or two, you adapt to this tiny change, and it becomes part of the conditions that you’re used to. Your new normal. Changing your life in small steps like this, one small change at a time, is much easier and much more likely to succeed than making multiple huge changes all at once. Gradually change your normal.
2. Small changes are easier to start. A big change not only requires your mental commitment, but more time and effort. If you already have your time tied up in other things, you’ll find it difficult to find the time to start your new habit. You might do it once or twice (go to the gym for an hour) but that habit is dead before it starts unless you put in an extraordinary effort. A small change — just a few pushups in the morning, for example — is much easier to get started. You could start it right now, in the middle of reading this article. Making it easy to start a habit means you’re more likely to actually do it.
3. Small changes are easier to sustain. If you start a big change (go to the gym for 30 minutes every day!), you might actually be able to start it with all the enthusiasm you have in the beginning. But that enthusiasm wanes, depending on energy and sleep levels, what else is going on in your life, disruptions in routine, etc. And eventually you’ll probably fail. But if you make the habit very small when you start, you are much much more likely to sustain it for longer. It’s easier to keep a small thing going than a big one. And keeping it going is what matters.
4. Habits are tied to triggers. When the trigger happens, the habit follows, if it’s been ingrained strongly as a habit. For example, for some people, when they arrive at work, they immediately turn on their computer. And then maybe immediately do another habit after that. The habit-trigger bond is strengthened from lots of repetitions.
5. Habits with variable or multiple triggers are harder. If you want to meditate every morning after waking and drinking your customary glass of water (for example), it’s much easier to create a habit like this with one daily trigger … as opposed to a habit that requires either 1) variable triggers, like not reacting angrily when someone criticizes you (you don’t know when that trigger will happen), or 2) several different kinds of triggers, such as smoking which might be triggered by stress or other people smoking or drinking alcohol or coffee, etc.
6. Learn to do easier types of habits first. If you try to do hard types of habits (like ones with variable or multiple triggers, or ones that you dislike or find very difficult), and you’re not skilled at creating habits, you’re much less likely to succeed. I highly recommend doing easy habits first, ones that only require a couple minutes a day, are tied to a single daily trigger, and that you enjoy and find easy. What’s the point of trying to form an easy habit? Well, you might find it harder than you think, but also, you’re building your habit skills, and most importantly, you’re building trust in yourself.
7. Build trust in yourself. What I lacked before I got better at changing habits was trust that I would stick to a habit. Why? Because I’d failed so often before, allowing myself to break promises to myself because it was easier than sticking to the promises. It’s like if another person constantly lies to you — you don’t trust that person anymore. The same is true of your promises to yourself. And the solution is the same — to build trust slowly, with small promises and small victories. This takes time. But it’s arguably the most important thing you can do.
8. Incremental changes add up to huge changes. This might seem to make sense on the surface, but I don’t think most people feel its truth in their gut. We all want all the changes we want, right now. We can’t possibly make ourselves give up a few of those changes for awhile, to focus on one, because then we wouldn’t get what we want, right now. I’ve seen this so many times — people want to make 10 changes at once, and can’t choose just one to focus on. But doing lots of changes at once, or big changes, means you are less likely to succeed. But if you stick with small changes, you’ll see some powerful long-term change. Try making small changes to your diet and activity levels — after a year, you’ll be way fitter than before. Try learning something a little at a time — if you can make it a habit and stick with it, you’ll be way better at it in six months. This is what I’ve seen in my life, and it’s been dramatic in scope.
9. It doesn’t matter which change you focus on first. We’re not in it for the short game, we’re in it for the long game. It can be hard to figure out which change to make right now, because that means giving up lots of other important changes. And I’ve seen people agonize over which change to make first, because they think the order matters. Sure, maybe it would be optimal to learn to meditate first, before making eating changes, but you know what’s not optimal? Making no changes. Over the long term, if you pick one small change at a time, you’ll have all the important habits formed. So honestly, just pick the one you feel like doing the most — the one that you’ll enjoy most.
10. Energy and sleep levels matter a lot. I wrote about this recently, but if you are sleep-deprived, you’ll be tired and have little energy to focus on habit changes. That’s fine when your enthusiasm for your new habit is high, but the moment things get even a little difficult, you’ll skip the habit because you don’t have the willpower to push yourself through a little discomfort. Sleep matters.
11. Dealing with disruptions in routine is a learned skill. One of the most common causes of habit failure is disruption in routine — taking a trip, having a big work project that requires you to work late, having visitors, having a cold. These kinds of things change your normal routines, which do a couple things to the habit you’re forming: 1) the trigger might not happen (if you’re sick you might not get up and shower, for example, if showering is your trigger), and 2) you might get so busy/tired that you don’t have time/energy to do the habit. So how do you deal with this obstacle? Anticipate it. Know that it will happen (yes, everyone’s routine gets disrupted). Plan to either take a break while you’re traveling (for example), or have a new trigger while your old one is temporarily disrupted. This kind of anticipation and planning is a skill that you can learn, and this skill makes you better at creating new habits.
12. Think ahead to avoid foreseeable obstacles. Other than disruptions to your routine, there are other things you can anticipate. For example, if you’re changing your eating habit (say, no sugar) and you’re going to a restaurant with friends or a birthday party, what will you eat? What will your strategy be if there’s sugar (which there will be)? If you forget about it and wait until it happens, you’ll be unprepared and less likely to stick to your habit. How and where will you work out when you travel? Anticipate and prepare.
13. Watch your self-talk. We all talk to ourselves. It’s just not always obvious, because the self-talk happens in the back of our heads, unnoticed most of the time. That’s normal, but when the self-talk is negative, it can absolutely ruin a habit change. If your self-talk is a series of things like, “This is too hard, I can’t do this, why am I making myself suffer, it’s OK to cheat, it’s OK to quit, this is too hard, I hate this” … you need to either catch it, or you’ll likely fail. You have to become aware of what you’re saying to yourself, and recognize that it’s not true. Then tell yourself things that are positive. This is a key habit skill.
14. Get good at watching but not acting on urges. When you see the urge to smoke, or eat a whole bag of Doritos, or not meditate, or procrastinate, or not go on your morning run … you can pause and watch it but not act on that urge. The urge usually goes unnoticed, and you just act on it. But you can watch it, and not act. You can give yourself a choice. At the moment you’re watching, dig deep and remember your powerful motivations.
15. Have powerful motivations. It’s easy to say, “Sure, I’d love to learn to program!” It sounds nice. But something that sounds nice isn’t going to stick when things get a little hard. You need to have a very strong motivation — wanting to have better health so you won’t suffer as much, wanting to create a good life for your kids, wanting to help people in need. Looking good is not a good motivator, but feeling strong and empowered is. Write your motivation down. Remind yourself of it when things get hard.
16. Use accountability to engineer positive & negative feedback loops. Feedback loops help steer you to doing a habit long enough for it to be ingrained as a habit … or they help steer you away from a habit. Sugar and drugs have feedback loops that are good for forming habits (you get pleasure from doing the habit, suffer if you don’t), while exercise often has the wrong feedback loops (it’s hard to do the habit, enjoyable to watch TV and skip the habit). However, we can re-engineer the feedback loops, and accountability is one of the best ways of doing that. If you’re going to meet a friend at 6am to go on a run, you’d feel really bad if you missed the run, and feel good about going on the run with your friend and enjoying the conversation. Boom. New feedback loop. Same thing when you blog about your habit to an audience, or join an accountability team.
17. Challenges work really well. Short-term challenges of 2-6 weeks can be really motivating. Maybe it’s a challenge between two people (you and a friend), or a group challenge. It’s a form of accountability that’s fun and, again, revises the feedback loop in a good way. Examples of challenges: no sugar for a month, work out every day for 21 days, stick to a diet for 6 weeks, etc.
18. Exceptions lead to more exceptions. It’s really easy to justify not doing your new habit (or doing an old habit you’re trying to quit) by saying, “Just one time won’t hurt.” Except that it will, because now you think it’s OK to make exceptions. And now you don’t really trust yourself to stick to your promise to yourself. It’s much more effective to not make exceptions — catch yourself if you’re thinking about it and trying to justify it, and remember your motivations. When I quit smoking, I told myself Not One Puff Ever (NOPE).
19. The habit is the reward — it’s not a chore. Adding external rewards can be a useful way to have good feedback for doing the habit, but the best possible reward is internal. The reward is doing the habit. Then you get the reward immediately, not later. For example, if you think exercise sucks, you’re getting bad feedback as you do the habit — you won’t stick to it for long. But if you can find ways to enjoy the exercise (do it with a friend, see the enjoyable aspects of exercise, play a sport that you love, go on a hike with awesome views, etc.) then you’re getting positive feedback as you do the habit. Change your thinking — the habit is lovely, a reward in and of itself, a way to care for yourself. Do not think of it as a chore you need to get done, or you’ll avoid it.
20. Lots of habits at once means you’ll probably fail. Go ahead and try an experiment: do 5 new habits at once. See how many you’re successful with. Then try one habit only, and see how long you stick to that. In my experiments, one habit is much more successful than two at a time, and exponentially more successful than 5-10 habits at once.
21. Recognize when you’re getting distracted. In the beginning, we can get very focused on a new habit, and have lots of energy to put into it. But other things can come up and we might find a new shiny toy to get excited about … and soon the old habit change is falling to the wayside. This has happened to me many times. Now, I’m not saying a habit needs to take up all your mindspace and free time. That’s not healthy either. But you should be able to focus on it for a small amount of time each day, and still enjoy it and look forward to it. If that’s falling away, re-examine your motivation and priorities, and either drop the habit or re-focus.
22. A blog is an amazing tool. As I said, accountability makes a huge difference in your habit’s feedback loops. Blogging is a great way to get accountability. And as you’re sharing what you’ve been doing and what you’re learning, you are forced to reflect on your habit, which makes what you learn about the habit and yourself a much deeper experience.
23. Failure is a learning tool. You will fail in your habit attempts — that’s a given. But instead of seeing it as a failure of you as a person (it’s not), see it as a way to learn about yourself and habit change. Each person is different — what works for me won’t necessarily work for you. And you won’t know until you try it and fail. When you fail, you learn something new, and that helps you get better.
24. How you deal with failure is key. When many people fail, they feel bad about themselves and give up. This is why they have such a hard time changing habits. If instead they got back up and tried again, perhaps with an adjustment to their method (some new accountability, for example), they’d obviously have a much higher chance of success. The people who succeed at habits aren’t people who never fail — they’re people who keep going after they fail.
25. Adjust or die. On a related note, habit change is about learning to adjust. New job? That will change things, so you’ll need to adjust your habit. Missed a few days? Figure out what’s going wrong and adjust. Habit isn’t enjoyable? Find a new way to make it enjoyable. Self-talk sabotaging your habit change? Focus on becoming aware of your self-talk so you can solve that problem. Adjust, adjust, adjust.
26. Enlist support. Who will you turn to when things get hard? When you need encouragement? When you fail? Have a support buddy — I had one when I was quitting smoking, and I’ve used it other times as well. If you start out without support, and fail, that’s OK — adjust by finding someone to help you. That might be your spouse or best friend or parent or sibling or co-worker. Or maybe you find a support group online. It makes a big difference.
27. You limit yourself. Lots of times I suggest people give up something like cheese or sugar or beer, at least for a little while. They respond: “I could never give up my cheese!” (or meat, or sweets, etc.) Well, that’s true if you believe it. However, I’ve learned that we often think we can’t do something when really we can. I recently talked to someone who was absolutely sure she couldn’t give up baked goods. She limits herself with this belief. We all do to some extent — but if you can examine your beliefs and be willing to test them out, you’ll often find out they’re not true.
28. Set up your environment for success. If you’re going to give up sweets, get rid of all the sweets in your house. Ask your spouse to support you by not making or buying sweets for a little while. Tell friends you’re not eating sweets and ask them to support you. Yes, this can require others to make adjustments, but if you ask nicely for their help, often they’ll be glad to support you. But the point is, find ways to create an environment where you’re likely to succeed. Create accountability, reminders, support, a lack of temptations and distractions, etc.
29. Just lace up your shoes & get out the door. Reduce the barrier to starting the habit. If I need to go for a run, often I’ll think about how hard it is, how long it will take, how cold it will be, etc., and I’ll psyche myself out and not do it. But when my rule is, “Just lace up my shoes and get out the door”, that’s so easy it’s hard to say no. That’s my bar. As easy as possible. Once I’m out the door, I’m invariably glad I started and things go well. For meditating, just get your butt on the cushion. For writing, just open up your writing program and write a sentence.
30. Define your breaks. If you’re going to be traveling and know that you can’t stick to your habit, for example, set the dates of your habit break in advance, rather than letting it slide and then thinking that you’ve failed. And have the date when you’re going to get back on track, and set a reminder so you don’t forget. This will keep a planned event from completely derailing your habit change.
31. Habits are situational. A habit is tied to a trigger, but really, the trigger is an environment. So if your trigger is your morning shower, that’s great, but it’s not the shower itself. The trigger is taking the shower in your home, getting out, seeing a something in your bathroom that somehow triggers the impulse to go and meditate (or whatever your habit is). So if you take a shower in a different bathroom in your house, or in a hotel, the trigger doesn’t happen. The same is true if you got a phone call as you got out of the shower, or your wife comes and gives you a hug, both disrupting the trigger. Anyway, there’s not much you can do with this info, as you can’t control all the things in your environment, but being aware of subtle environmental changes that affect your habit can help you to understand what’s going on.
32. Learn to cope in other ways. Often your bad habits are ways of coping with a real need — like needing to cope with stress or bad feelings about yourself or a fight with a loved one. The need to cope with these things won’t go away, and so bad habit becomes a crutch. You can find other ways of coping that are healthier, so you don’t need the crutch anymore. Read more.
33. Be kind to yourself. You will fail, and you can be hard on yourself and feel guilty and think that you’re crap. That won’t help at all. Being kind to yourself is a good habit skill, if you pair it with an adjustment that allows you to improve your habit method. To be kind to yourself: remind yourself of how hard it is to be happy, and that you’re struggling to find happiness despite things that cause you stress and frustration and anger and irritation and disappointment. This is hard. Have empathy with yourself. Be understanding and compassionate. It will help you as you adjust and try again.
34. Perfect is the enemy. Often people strive for perfection, but this stands in the way of progress. Progress is much more important than perfection. If you find yourself not starting a habit because you want the perfect circumstances, or not meditating because you want the perfect time or space, or not writing because you want the perfect tool, or not being happy because you haven’t been perfect with your habit — drop your expectations and just do the habit.
35. A workout partner works wonders. For exercise, the most effect method for me is to have a workout partner. That’s true whether I’m going to the gym, taking a Crossfit or yoga class, going for a run or hike. When I don’t have a workout partner, my frequency can often drop. This concept can be applied to any habit that you’re struggling with.
36. Habit changes are tools for self-learning. Habit changes aren’t just ways to add a new thing to your life. They’re tools for learning about yourself. Through habit change, you learn about what motivates you, about self-talk and rationalization, about urges, about internal vs. external rewards, about weaknesses and kindness, about progress and empowerment. You can learn more about yourself through a few months of habit change than you have in the last decade, if you pay attention. And in that way, habit change is an extremely rewarding process, regardless of the outcome.

39 Days | It's a Journey...

40 Days | DYOH Book Study Chapters 9 & 10

Chapter 9 – First Steps:  Your Choice of Health as a Priority

Our New Health Orientation:  Our Primary Choice, which is the most important to us, guides us to do the secondary actions that support it.  If the Primary Choice is Optimal Health then our secondary choices (healthy eating, exercise, stress reduction, restorative sleep) will support the primary choice for Optimal Health.

In order to bring focus to habits of health (our secondary choices), we need to create skills, strategies, and tools to make optimal health a reality.

    - Mindfulness – be aware of emotions, triggers and stress that can cause us to lose focus

    - Visit the doctor – knowledge is power; find out if there are any health issues that you need to focus on

    - Visit the dentist – dental health is also important as it can be directly tied to longevity

Question:  What secondary action may cause you to stumble on the road to optimal health?

Chapter 10 – Crating Your Healthy New World

    - Modify Your Surroundings

    - Establish a Stong Support Network

    - Put Yourself at the Center – 12-Week Health Transformation

12-Week Health Transformation - www.stopchallengechoose.com 

    - Practice Mindfulness and Relaxation

    - Tame Your Inner Self – STOP-CHALLENGE-CHOOSE

Question:  What changes to your environment will be difficult?

For Further Reading:

Dr. A’s Habits of Health

Chapter 4:  Health is All About Choice

Chapter 6: Your Blueprint for Safe, Rapid Weight Loss

41 Days | Learning to Cut the Sugar

Yesterday's post on sugar hit a lot of you very strongly.  And one of the resounding questions was, "How do we walk away from it?"  

Know this--no one said it was easy.

For me and many others on this 90 day challenge, we something specific--a plan that had tight boundaries, but was also healthy and helpful and easy to follow.  The 5/1 plan was (and is) one rehabilitation option. It uses incredibly scientific, perfectly portion, nutrition controlled meals that most of us don't have the time, energy or know-how to prepare for ourselves.  It isn't sugar-free and carb-free, it is sugar and carb controlled.  And while you are detoxing and regaining health, you have the freedom to practice new habits that are all-important for longterm change.

But it is not the ONLY way.  It is possible to detox on your own.  It will take extreme commitment, but anything worth doing requires commitment, right?

This is a FANTASTIC article by a man named Nahad O'Connor.  It is entitled, "Learning to Cut the Sugar" and he makes some excellent points.  He helps people detox from sugar.

In case you decide not to read the article, I want to make sure you hear this one very important point:

What are your thoughts on diets that focus on calories?

A.

I’m not against reducing calories. But if that’s all you’re doing, it can’t work. It depends what those calories are. Everything that comes in a 100-calorie container, half of it is sugar, whether it’s yogurt, or cookies, or whatever. If a calorie is a calorie, then it should work. But it doesn’t, because a calorie is not a calorie. And this is the thing that we have to get past. 

The other thing I loved in the article is that they took families and showed them that kids WILL eat healthy food, that parents will too, and that MANY children enjoyed the healthy foods, it wasn't just a fluke.  Additionally, they showed them grocery bills to prove that they also could afford to eat healthily.  They debunked the excuses--the excuses we all make.

Sugar (in all of its various forms and names) certainly isn't the only thing that hurts us, but killing it is a very good start toward slaying the dragon.  

42 Days | Sugar is NOT So Sweet!

You MUST read this article about SUGAR!  If you still want to consume sugar after you read this article, please comment and let me know...

YOU WILL NOT WANT TO EAT SUGAR IF YOU UNDERSTAND A FEW THINGS...

43 Days | The Primary Choices of Optimal Health

"THESE CHOICES ARE JUST THE BEGINNING. OPTIMAL HEALTH IS BUILT ON A FOUNDATION OF BEHAVIORS THAT TOGETHER CREATE A LIFESTYLE THAT SUSTAINS BODY AND MIND IN THIS HEALTHY STATE INDEFINITELY. THIS FOUNDATION SUPPORTS YOUR HIGHEST GOAL—THE FUNDAMENTAL CHOICE OF OPTIMAL HEALTH."  -Dr. A

What are the foundations of Health?

• Healthy eating, including vita-nutrient support.
• A healthy weight and a normal waist size
• An active lifestyle, including a daily activity program, a walking program, strength conditioning, flexibility, agility
• Recuperative sleep
• Relaxation
• A microenvironment of health
• Well-being, including social activities, limited stress, a sense of purpose and meaning, spiritual health, and personal fulfillment
• A support system

Using these foundations and the goals, list 10 primary choices that you will make or are making for Optimal Health. These primary choices will help to guide your secondary choices. And remember, these aren't things you necessarily want to do. For example, you my not really like to go to the trainer and work out, but you do it because you like to be strong and healthy so you can do other things you REALLY WANT to do!  

44 Days | Strong Mental Focus & Good Strategy

"A healthy weight is the result of a strong mental focus and a well-planned eating strategy."

From Dr. A:

Create a New Energy Management System

To reach and maintain a healthy weight, you need to take control of your energy management system—that is, calories in and calories out. It’s also critical to get your body out of fat-storage mode and into fat-burning mode by controlling your body’s release of insulin.

Take a look at this chart of our typical eating pattern. Does this resemble the way you eat or how you used to eat? When we eat meals that are high in fat, sugar, and simple carbohydrates, our blood sugar and insulin levels increase and facilitate the accumulation of excess fat. This lesson is designed to help you fire your current energy management system and enter your new leptogenic world through a comprehensive approach that puts you in charge.

Eating a little healthier or walking a little more isn’t going to get you to your healthy weight because the evil forces out there—tempting you with calories and offering you a nice, cushy ride in place of exercises—are just too powerful. The steady-as-you-go approach just isn’t going to work for most of us, but it does provide a foundation for us to begin using our biological design to our advantage.

We’ll start by giving you a new eating strategy. Look at it this way: if I can help you lose one to two pounds each week while keeping you from being hungry and eliminating your cravings for carbohydrates, and if a little later (after you have lost some weight) all I ask of you is 30 minutes of your time for a nice walk, will you do it? I hope your answer is yes.

The Logistics of Healthy Eating

Can you eat every three hours? If so, you can change your life. A study by David Jenkins, MD, PhD—the University of Toronto pioneer in low-glycemic eating—demonstrates that eating small portions at frequent intervals is good for your health in a number of important, even remarkable ways. Among those benefits are weight loss, hunger control, reduced blood insulin, and reduced LDL (“bad”) cholesterol. If you are following this program with Medifast meal replacements, you are already enjoying the benefits of properly timing your portions, but now you can better understand the science behind your choices.

Here’s the schedule that you’ll use during your weight-loss phase, which I call Phase I in my book The Habits of Health:

• 7:00 a.m. breakfast
• 10:00 a.m. nourishment
• 1:00 p.m. nourishment (or small lunch)
• 4:00 p.m. nourishment
• 7:00 p.m. dinner
• 9:30-10:00 p.m. small nourishment

Whether you are using our Medifast meal replacements (The 5 & 1 Plan*) or doing this with your own foods, you should be eating every two to three hours. 

Continue the process of discovering Optimal Health by creating a microenvironment of health. I hope you’re thirsty, because you should already be drinking your first 8-ounce glass of water!

*For those of you on the 5 & 1 Plan, one of those meals will be a Lean & Green™ Meal; the rest will be Medifast Meals.  Follow the guidelines in the Quick Start Guide, and work with your Health Coach until you reach a healthy weight. You will then transition to all of the ideas presented in the next few e-mails. The good news is that you are starting to learn the Habits of Healthy eating for life while using the simple, effective 5 & 1 Plan.

45 Days | Home Makeover for Healthy Success

The Kitchen Makeover

Portion control is important, and you can start by using a nine-inch plate to control your intake. For example, on a nine-inch plate, 50% of the plate should be taken up by vegetables and fruits, 25% by protein, and 25% by starches. Medifast meal replacements do this work for you, but knowing these rules will be important for when you transition. Here are some other tips for controlling your portions:

• Put away your large plates and bowls and replace them with nine-inch plates and cup-sized bowls. Use only small forks and spoons.
• Use a food scale and measuring cups to regulate portion size.
• Put the proper amount of food onto your plate in the kitchen and then leave the kitchen and sit in the dining room. Don’t place serving dishes on the table that may tempt you to take a second helping.
• Consider painting your kitchen blue and using blue plates and placements. The color blue is known to decrease appetite, while yellow and red increase it.
• Keep the lights on. Studies show that we tend to eat less in bright light.

And here’s a kitchen checklist to make sure that you have the essentials:

• Food scale
• Measuring cups
• Small cups and bowls
• Seven- to nine-inch dinner plates
• Teaspoons and salad forks
• Blue placemats and plates
• Bright lights

Refrigerator and Cupboard Makeover

Make it easy to avoid high-calorie, high-fat meals and snacks by getting rid of the following:

• Whole-fat dairy products (whole milk, cheese, yogurt, cottage cheese, butter, and mayonnaise)
• Processed deli meats
• Fattening salad dressings
• White bread, pasta, rice, and flour
• Fruit drinks
• Cookies

And before you reach for a handful of Oreos, do not use this exercise as a last chance to eat all of your unhealthy food. Instead, give foods away to your neighbor or food bank. Once you get to your healthy weight, you can have an occasional Oreo if you want it.

Now, restock your fridge and cupboards with these:

• Medifast meals and snacks
• Fat-free or low-fat dairy products (skim milk, low-fat yogurt, low-fat cheeses)
• Lean proteins (skinless chicken, turkey breast, fish)
• Whole-grain bread and pasta, brown rice
• Beans
• Fresh fruits and vegetables
• Olive oil, vinegar, spray-type salad dressings
• Herbs and spices

If other members of your household are not working to achieve Optimal Health, you may need to claim a cupboard for yourself. Better yet, challenge them to put an end to their unhealthy eating habits!

Healthy Snacks

Replace high-calorie foods like peanuts and chips with fresh green vegetables and fruits (if your eating plan permits fruit; check with your Health Coach to be sure). Here are some great low-calorie snacks:

• Asparagus (1/2 cup = 18 cal, 3 carbs)
• Broccoli (1 cup = 44 cal, 8 carbs)
• Sugar-free Jello (1 snack cup = 10 cal, 0 carbs)
• Cauliflower (2 oz = 12 cal, 2 carbs)
• Celery (1 stalk = 6 cal, 1 carb)
• Dill pickle (1 = 4 cal, 1 carb)
• Radishes (1 oz = 8 cal, 2 carbs)
• Spinach (1 cup = 6 cal, 1 carb)
• Bouillon (1 cup = 10 cal, 1 carb)
• Cucumber (1 cup = 15 cal, 3 carbs)
• Lettuce (1 cup = 2 cal, 0 carbs)
• Spinach (1 cup = 6 cal, 1 carb)

And remember: before you grab something to eat, make sure you’re actually hungry and not just thirsty. Around 30 percent of the time, thirst is disguised as hunger, so try drinking a big glass of water and waiting 10 minutes. You may not need that snack after all!

Bedroom Makeover

Studies show that sleep is key—not just to our overall health, but to our ability to lose and maintain weight. That’s why it’s so important to get at least seven hours of sleep every night (eight for men). Design your bedroom for relaxation by using relaxing scents and light and calming colors like peach, yellow, or lavender. Stay away from late-night TV, and read a motivational book instead, or write out your affirmations in your journal. Get rid of clutter in your bedroom and closets, and take any clothes that are too big for you to a consignment shop—and never look back!

Your New Home

We covered a lot of changes today. Do your best to complete as much of the makeover as you can today. Suggestions like repainting your kitchen take more time, but they make a big difference. You may also find it helpful to print this lesson out and hang a copy of it somewhere prominent for reference later.