The old switcheroo. When I have one song stuck in my head and I want it out, I just start listening to another song.
To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
91–100 of 180 posts
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#92There was an author named Allen Carr, an Englishman, I believe, who wrote a book called The EasyWay to Quit Smoking. I can attest to the relative ease his method provides, over quitting cold turkey. Essentially, he uses tools of psychology to reinforce his points, such as spaced repetition, but he also dissects the psychology at play inside the smoker's mind. He frames nicotene addiction as a state of brainwashing, a…
This book was a revelation to me. I remember my last cigarette like it was yesterday, and I truly enjoyed it. I haven't smoked in 11 years, and it's thanks to this book. It took me three years to stop dreaming about smoking though, and I know I'm not an "ex-smoker". Being aware of that is the strongest part of the deal. I know that I could smoke again with so much ease that I refuse to even touch a cigarette. In the end, it's the best thing I've ever done in my life, and that book helped me so much.
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a little thing that helps is the experience that correcting your self brings tangible benefits. When you felt it, the next time you will happily fix your problems. In a way I felt it was a worthy definition of being an adult. You suddenly strive for small but regular, organized, balanced .. instead of idle or intense (typical young adult maybe)
This is such an important point. I know some people who have made great efforts such as exercising more or quitting alcohol, but for whatever reason they claim to not perceive the purported benefit of their effort. I don't know how to help them, because for me, if I need more exercise, I perceive the "benefit" (mood improvement, etc.) usually almost immediately, like 5 minutes into it. When I cut out alcohol, I perce…
Regarding exercise, I may be able to provide some insight as I've gone through this transition over the past few years. Most likely, they're looking for the wrong benefits:
As a society, we tend to center our advice to overweight people around "losing weight." It's a useful long-term diagnostic, but terrible as a day-to-day guide. The maximum safe rate of weight loss is 1-2 lbs/week, but your weight can easily fluctuate by 5 lbs through the course of the day -- even when doing everything right, you still have to go back a month to reliably find higher scale readings.
As people chase scale readings, they tend to pass straight through the enjoyable activity range without noticing and into the range that requires burning willpower to continue. The trick is to focus on activities that are inherently enjoyable, and work on improving them. Lots of people that kill themselves running on the treadmill would be better served by a leisurely stroll outside. Eventually, they'll add in some jogging just because they feel like it, and they've started on an improvement path that's long-term sustainable.
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree completely. I spent years as a fitness instructor and worked out regularly. Life happened, I stopped teaching and working out consistently for five years and everything went south, weight, blood pressure, strength, cardio, cholesterol, etc. I tried to "turn things around" and failed. First step first 6 months - I cut back on fried foods, salty foods, burgers, and sweets and kept a sane calorie budget. Along w…
As far as cutting back on meat goes: I'd suggest simply focusing on eating enough vegetables. Most folks don't come near eating enough fruit and vegetables (most of which should be vegetables). You might find that simply getting enough vegetables forces you to cut back on meat. You might replace part of the meat in a meal with vegetables. Maybe switch your breakfast so you eat fruit or vegetables. Same for lunch. Fin…
(not who you responded to, fyi)
I've noticed that veggies are hugely important to making me feel good, probably because of the fiber and the fact that I'm eating them instead of processed crap.
It drive me crazy, though, trying to find recipes that have lots of veggies, but still a little bit of meat. I like meat, and no desire to become a vegetarian of any sort, I just want to have 90% veggies, 10% meat, or something around that. It is really hard to find that balance in recipes. I usually just take a recipe and add a ton of veggies. That works, kinda, but I really wish it was easier to find recipes that already figured that stuff out.
I got an Instant Pot for xmas, and while it isn't worth the hype, I've found some good recipes for it. One is Chicken and Dumplings. Really tasty, but I added red pepper, green pepper, celery, carrots, and onions to the recipe, and greatly reduced the dumplings. It took about 4-5 tries before I found a new version of the recipe that we liked. I'd like it if I could find that recipe straight up. "High Veggie" recipes, or something.
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is such an important point. I know some people who have made great efforts such as exercising more or quitting alcohol, but for whatever reason they claim to not perceive the purported benefit of their effort. I don't know how to help them, because for me, if I need more exercise, I perceive the "benefit" (mood improvement, etc.) usually almost immediately, like 5 minutes into it. When I cut out alcohol, I perce…
Regarding exercise, I may be able to provide some insight as I've gone through this transition over the past few years. Most likely, they're looking for the wrong benefits: As a society, we tend to center our advice to overweight people around "losing weight." It's a useful long-term diagnostic, but terrible as a day-to-day guide. The maximum safe rate of weight loss is 1-2 lbs/week, but your weight can easily fluctu…
Good point. It's an important factor. If I may add one pinch of advice though: it's also important not to run for pleasure only, that's the reason people are overweight in the first place; eating on a couch is 100% pleasure. Some times you have to overcome a pain barrier. And very often in life it is so. Not to turn people into masochists but it's important to know.
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regarding exercise, I may be able to provide some insight as I've gone through this transition over the past few years. Most likely, they're looking for the wrong benefits: As a society, we tend to center our advice to overweight people around "losing weight." It's a useful long-term diagnostic, but terrible as a day-to-day guide. The maximum safe rate of weight loss is 1-2 lbs/week, but your weight can easily fluctu…
Good point. It's an important factor. If I may add one pinch of advice though: it's also important not to run for pleasure only, that's the reason people are overweight in the first place; eating on a couch is 100% pleasure. Some times you have to overcome a pain barrier. And very often in life it is so. Not to turn people into masochists but it's important to know.
Well, yes and no. With me, as I started to get more active, I voluntarily pushed into those pain barriers because they weren't that bad, and made me feel amazing the next morning. Similarly, my eating habits improved primarily because eating junk makes me feel sluggish for a while, robbing later activity of its enjoyment. I sometimes still make that choice, but I usually pick activity instead.
Most importantly, through the whole process, I never had to force myself to do something I didn't want to. Instead, I put myself in positions where I want to do things that have a long-term benefit, for short-term reasons.
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#97When training animals, particularly dogs, it's (I think) pretty well-known that redirecting to positive behaviors is much more effective than punishing unwanted behaviors (so much so that one could say "punishment does not work at all compared to redirecting to desired behaviors" without much exaggeration). i.e. when a dog chews on a sofa cushion, put a dog chew in their mouth or direct them to go get their toy or ch…
I do agree with your statement, but it's the idealistic approach and sometimes not effective at all. A big problem with the dogs (as observed in humans, too) is that if they don't see a leader in you, they are going to take this position over. I've had 4 dogs in my lifetime and I've tried different approaches with all of them, because they all had different characters, but one thing I did with all of them: I was stri…
How do you define "punishment" for dog training? In the psychological sense, punishment is going to mean either denial of a positive thing (treats, toys, etc) or use of a negative thing (scolding, physical methods like spraying water or citronella, poking (dog whisperer's method) or straight up violence).
To me, this is not the way to train a dog. You can still be a leader by providing their food at set times, by giving them play time and ample walks, and by truly mastering yourself so you do not unnecessarily use physical or verbal abuse on them. To me, I've never had to punish my dogs, all I'll do is say "No" in a particular tone of voice. Other than that, I just reinforce the good behaviors, allow them wiggle-room for breed-specific behaviors, and make sure they have plenty of exercise and a good diet.
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is such an important point. I know some people who have made great efforts such as exercising more or quitting alcohol, but for whatever reason they claim to not perceive the purported benefit of their effort. I don't know how to help them, because for me, if I need more exercise, I perceive the "benefit" (mood improvement, etc.) usually almost immediately, like 5 minutes into it. When I cut out alcohol, I perce…
Regarding exercise, I may be able to provide some insight as I've gone through this transition over the past few years. Most likely, they're looking for the wrong benefits: As a society, we tend to center our advice to overweight people around "losing weight." It's a useful long-term diagnostic, but terrible as a day-to-day guide. The maximum safe rate of weight loss is 1-2 lbs/week, but your weight can easily fluctu…
If people want to lose weight, the worse advice you can give them is to "exercise to lose weight". Exercise has little to no effect on losing weight. You have to exercise at such a level of intensity and duration to make any meaningful difference that most people can't or won't do it. Losing weight is almost entirely about what you eat.
As I said in another post, I was a part time fitness instructor for 12 years and I would exercise intensely between teaching and my own personal workouts 10 hours a week. But it didn't take "willpower" because it was harder to get out of exercising (I had to find a sub), it was part of my social life and I was getting paid to stay in shape. How many people could handle that level of effort?
Even now, to see any effects from exercise on losing weight and keeping what I would consider a fairly normal caloric intake, I exercise 2 hours/four days a week and trending toward 3 hours/four days a week. How many people can actually do that?
I also have a separate room in our house reserved for exercise equipment so I don't have to find time to go the gym - a treadmill, elliptical, and soon a magnetic rower and adjustable weights. When all is said and done, I'll have about $5000 worth of equipment in my house. I would never recommend most people spend money on exercise equipment at home unless they are already an avid exerciser.
There are a lot of good reasons to exercise that should be emphasized but so wouldn't even mention "weight loss" as one of them.
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good point. It's an important factor. If I may add one pinch of advice though: it's also important not to run for pleasure only, that's the reason people are overweight in the first place; eating on a couch is 100% pleasure. Some times you have to overcome a pain barrier. And very often in life it is so. Not to turn people into masochists but it's important to know.
Well, yes and no. With me, as I started to get more active, I voluntarily pushed into those pain barriers because they weren't that bad, and made me feel amazing the next morning. Similarly, my eating habits improved primarily because eating junk makes me feel sluggish for a while, robbing later activity of its enjoyment. I sometimes still make that choice, but I usually pick activity instead. Most importantly, throu…
I had moments of deep mental resistance, anything is a damn burden. I believe lots of people feel the same and have a few very high psychological barriers.
Re: To Change Habits, Try Replacement Instead
#100Please replace this link to the New York Times with something without a Paywall.
On iOS, I just have any NYT site to default to reader view.