Changing an eating habit requires conscious work, since habits are generally associated with automatic and mostly unconscious behaviors. Habits appear in our lives for various reasons, either by imitation or by some trigger in life that leads us to acquire certain routines.
Can I change an eating habit in 21 days?
That depends on how long ago you have acquired that habit. It is not the same to change an eating habit that you have acquired since childhood, to a habit that you have incorporated into your life in the last year; In addition, it must be taken into account what this routine is associated with (boredom, pleasure, stress, sadness, social, etc.) and also the intensity with which a person faces this habit: some are more ingrained than others, therefore Therefore, there will be people who can change an eating habit in a couple of weeks, while others may take several months to change them. Therefore, we are going to forget about time and implement these tips:
- Decision: It is important to have the internal decision to change an eating habit, no matter how long it takes you.
- Time of your life: If you are having a good time in your life, you are more likely to have more energy to change bad habits; If, on the other hand, you have many situations that you have to attend to, perhaps you could consider changing a habit that does not entail too much difficulty, for example, including more liquids throughout the day or changing the snack from a bun to a fruit, etc.
- Reasons why you want to change a habit: the ideal is to take the initiative out of your own desire and motivation and not depend on other situations or people, for example, I want to eat healthier because I want to lose weight for my friend’s wedding. Probably this change in eating habit will come to an end (when your friend’s wedding is over), you can also use this event as a kick-start to start eating healthier and be aware that you can maintain this healthy diet for longer.
- Detect the eating habit that you want to change, for example, reduce snack products or industrial pastries, stop sugary or alcoholic drinks, stop buying processed foods, etc.
- Identify what triggers the harmful habit, for example, you buy snack foods when you are at the office, you like to have a sweet after eating, you consume a lot of alcohol when you are with friends, at night when you get home you like to snack on what you find…
- Plan the new healthy habit, for example, change the office snack for nuts; have a fruit or yogurt for dessert instead of sweets; at night, suppress snacking by the option of resting for a while on the sofa, that is, to change a bad habit it is ideal to replace it with another healthy habit.
- Motivation: it is important that you are aware of the small achievements that you are doing; If one day you can’t achieve what you set out to do, don’t worry and try it the next day. Habit changes are not so linear, surely you will find yourself on more than one occasion with less energy to concentrate on changing that habit.
- Insist: the most important thing to achieve the success of a change in eating habit is to be consistent, so insist as many times as necessary.