FOOD: Heal Your Eating Habits, by behavioural change specialist Shahroo Izadi
Changing any habit is difficult. And doing difficult things is easier when you feel good. I don’t know many people who feel their best – with the resilience and motivation to embark on a plan of change – immediately after Christmas and the New Year.
So give yourself a few days where you identify all the other things you can do, not specific to your eating habits, that make you feel strong. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep, connecting with the people who make you feel good and that your environment is a welcoming place.
Create a landscape where doing difficult things become easier for you. Many people, myself included, develop a habit of deciding that when they have achieved their weight loss goals, they’re going to ask for that pay rise, wear that dress, go on that holiday. We need to disassociate our worth from our weight – and, as a happy by-product, you’re then more capable of doing difficult things, like creating new eating and exercise habits.
We need to understand why it is that we sometimes don’t seem to be able to maintain the changes we make.
Next, focus on adding things you want into your life – creating habits you want to be engaging in. Those you don’t want to be engaging in are gently, naturally pushed out. You might notice that you’re managing stress with binge-eating in the evening, or alcohol. Think, ‘What other coping mechanisms do I want to put in place that help me with stress?’
We also need to understand why it is that we sometimes don’t seem to be able to maintain the changes we make. When I lost eight stone, a big shift was thinking, ‘thank you food’. So often our habits have been there for us, and then we expect to just break them off because the by-product is something we don’t like.
If you want insight into the habits you are struggling to change, observe without judgement how that habit has served you so far. That’s what gives you the compassion to understand why you’ve developed bad habits – and to change them for new ones that work for you.
Shahroo’s new book The Last Diet is out now; shahrooizadi.co.uk
HEALTH: Habits To Change Your Life In Five Minutes, according to Dr Rangan Chatterjee
Dr Rangan Chatterjee, the GP-turned-wellness sensation, and host of the Feel Better Live More podcast, is telling me I can change my life in five minutes a day, writes Rosamund Dean.
‘Absolutely you can!’ he enthuses. ‘People think they don’t have time, but we’ve overcomplicated health.’ His new book, Feel Better In 5, contains five-minute health habits, and he suggests choosing one from each of three categories: mind, body and heart. Body and mind I get, but heart?
‘People know they should eat less sugar or drink less alcohol, but what’s at the root of why they don’t? Often it’s lack of human connection.’ Can small changes really make a difference? ‘The science of behaviour change shows that, if you want to make a habit stick, you have to start small.’
Try these three five-minute ‘health snacks’ each day, and watch your life change:
MIND: Write down your anxieties on paper first thing in the morning, before you pick up your phone. (Then you can toss them in the bin.)
BODY: Try strength training – squats and lunges require no equipment (the book has five-minute workouts).
HEART: Write in a gratitude diary or – better – phone a friend for a chat.
‘Link each habit to an existing one,’ says Rangan, ‘such as doing a five-minute workout while making coffee, or doing your gratitude diary on your commute. In a few days, you will become the kind of person who can stick to this.’
Feel Better In 5: Your Daily Plan To Feel Great For Life is out now
MONEY: Fix Your Finances In Five Steps, by Laura Whateley, author of Money: A User's Guide
ONE: Switch to a bank that categorises spending via an app so you are confronted, daily, by the reality of your finances, eg, Starling or Monzo. Pick a couple of days a week when you are only ‘allowed’ to buy basics.
TWO: What are you saving for and how much do you need? Set up a direct debit to move the percentage of your salary you decide you can sacrifice into a savings account.
THREE: But first, focus on debts. All extra money should be used to make sure you never pay overdraft charges or interest on a credit card.
FOUR: Google ‘pension calculator’ to see what you should be saving for retirement. The answer will be awful, but the magic of compound interest means start now and you’ll have to find much less as a proportion of your earnings.
FIVE: Once you have enough savings for emergencies (at least three months of essential outgoings), start investing in stocks and shares. The easiest way is via a ‘roboadviser’ like Wealthify or Moneybox. Set up a monthly deposit, check on it occasionally, leave it alone for at least a decade.
Money: A User's Guide is out now
READ MORE about the power of habits in Grazia magazine, out now
READ MORE: How I Made Friendship A Habit - And You Should Too