[Guest post] How To Keep Our New Year's Resolutions

I came across Dr. Laura Van Schaick-Harman's advice while searching out what other health professionals recommend to successfully make changes. Perhaps not the typical information you'd expect a dietitian to research, but as I have mentioned before, dietitian's jobs have quickly evolved. With Pinterest and Instagram and countless blogs about healthy eating, a dietitian's job has evolved from telling people what to do, to motivating and supporting them to make the changes they have decided upon.

Most of my clients know what they want to change but struggle with how to make the change and seeing the barriers that get in the way. With the New Year almost here I thought it appropriate to share some wise advice on how to keep those resolutions we are inclined to set.
Although I am not a big advocate for setting New Years resolutions and certainly discourage anyone from setting unrealistic resolutions, I think a healthy dose of advice on how to keep those that we set is always welcome.

Dr. Laura has created an amazing resource called "The 3 Biggest Mistakes People Make When Trying to Change a Behavior or Habit". It is FREE and you can sign up to receive it here: http://changebehaviorsnow.blogspot.ca/p/meet-new-you.html

Here is Dr. Laura's advice on "How to actually keep our New Year's Resolutions?":
(you can find the original blog post here.)

This is a question that is asked each year, usually by the end of January. New Year's Resolutions are essentially goals that we set for ourselves to accomplish during the year. These goals, however, may not be met and are set to be the following year's resolutions. Why does this happen? How can we achieve our resolutions?

In my practice, we spend the first session or two, and then as often as needed, discussing long term and short term goals/objectives. These are different terms, to be discussed below. Often, a New Year's Resolution is a long term goal (e.g., "I want to loose weight," "I want to have a good bathing suit body," "I want to get a new job," "I want to quit smoking") and it does not reflect the certain attributes that are needed to actually be successful in attaining this goal.

If we want our resolutions to be kept, we need to have an understanding of what healthy goal setting looks like. Long term goals are the broad aspirations that we would like to achieve later in the future. They are the end destination in a particular area of our lives. Long term goals may be large or small. Short term goals or objectives are the steps on the ladder to get you there. We don't jump on the roof of a three story building from the ground without climbing each step on the way up (unless we are Spider Man or another superhero-which is highly unlikely). For example, a long term goal may be for a child to learn how to wash their hands independently. Now, this may seem like a simple task and too simple to be a long term goal. However, take a moment and think of all of the objectives that need to be accomplished before the child achieves the long term goal of washing their hands independently. If you need some help, here are just a few of the steps on the ladder: walk to appropriate sink, turn water on, wet hands, pump soap, lather hands (both hands, between fingers, palm and outer hand), rinse soap off, turn water off, and dry hands. The child needs to be able to complete each of the objectives in order to achieve the long term goal.

Why am I writing about hand washing steps? If we have a resolution to go to the gym and loose weight and we have never been to the gym before, we are not likely to start going 4 times a week and maintain this schedule for long. If we haven't been looking for a new job, we are not likely to get hired by a company with a 50% salary increase by January 15th. There are objectives and short term goals that need to be accomplished first.

Goals need to be measurable (go to the gym 2 times/week for 30min each time), attainable (look for a new job to earn more money, not win the lottery), specific (target one behavior-eating, drinking, or exercising, not "be healthier") and realistic (learn 2 new healthy dinner recipes, not become a famous gourmet health chef on TV within 1 month).

When we set long term and short term goals, it can be helpful to make sure that we have enough steps on the ladder (objectives), a realistic long term goal, and that we make sure each goal is measurable, attainable, specific, and realistic.

Let's not confuse goals with dreams. You can dream about winning the lottery or becoming famous. These just don’t make for good resolutions or goals.

Consider revising your resolutions so they have enough short term goals and are measurable, attainable, specific, and realistic. It's never too late. If you noticed, I noted earlier that goals are discussed as often as needed throughout treatment in my practice. Goals can and should be revised whenever needed. Circumstances, desires, feelings, and finances change. Be flexible with your goal setting and enjoy climbing the ladder!

What are your revised New Year's Resolutions?

Dr. Laura offers free resources, tips, and help with behavior problems on her blog: http://meaningfulpsychservices.blogspot.ca/
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Here is a little insight to Dr. Laura's advice on the 3 biggest mistakes to avoid when trying to change:

Making healthy habits stick can be hard! Here are some solutions

In an earlier blog I mentioned that each little change we want to make to our diet can include 5 or more steps to actually accomplish. This can be a real hang up for people who underestimate how much time it takes to make a food change. On the bright side, understanding the steps needed to achieve that goal is very empowering. 

I recently had a conversation with Tommy Schnurmacher from The Tommy Schnurmacher Show on CJAD 800am about this very topic. You can listen to my interview using this player:




If you haven't figured it out yet, psychology plays a HUGE role in why, what, how and how much we eat. So using the principles of psychology to achieve desired changes is key.

Workplace wellness and positive psychology expert Michelle McQuaid has a few tips on how to make changes with less effort and more success. Her suggestion is to use rituals you already are doing and integrate them into the new habits you want to make. 

Michelle says that rituals signal our mind that it’s time for a specific activity. Since they are already part of our daily routine, they can act as triggers to get us ready for what we want to change. By combining rituals with small habits you want to change, you are already on your way to carrying out that change with less effort.


There are 3 components to changing a habit- the cue, the routine (or the ritual) and the reward. Here is an interesting flow chart by Charles Duhigg that shows these 3 components: 

Let's use an example of a 3 p.m. coffee break that includes eating a pastry. Imagine the health goal is to eat fewer pastries. The ritual includes getting the coffee (either at the coffee shop or to the coffee maker), drinking the coffee and eating the pastry. You are also likely socializing a bit, which is also part of the ritual. The cue is that mid-afternoon period where you're craving coffee and something sweet. The reward is perhaps feeling re-energized. 

Harness the power of that coffee ritual to help you eat more of something you are lacking while eating fewer pastries. A great example is fruit. You could try drinking the coffee while avoiding eating all together, but trying to not do something is harder than replacing one food for another. Try placing the fruit near the coffee machine or somewhere along the way to the coffee. 


An important factor in this triad for change is the reward. Michelle states that "whatever reward you use try to make it something you really want... It doesn’t matter what the reward is as long as you’d rather complete your habit than miss out".

If you are trying to start a new habit, say eating breakfast in the morning, match it up with a current routine you have as well as a reward for getting it done. For example, if you are in the habit of grabbing your lunch out of the fridge in the morning, why not also have a breakfast prepared and waiting to be eaten. The reward for eating breakfast could be watching hilarious YouTube cat videos while you eat. 

As I mentioned above, Charles Duhigg has a nifty flow chart that explains the "Golden Rule of Habit Changing". Unfortunately he is not a psychologist, but his "Golden Rule of Habit Change" looks interesting and sounds very similar to Michelle's.

His Golden Rule of Habit Change goes like this:

1) Identify the cue;
2) Identify the reward that you crave for;
3) Identify the routine that you perform to get the reward; and
4) Change the routine when the cue appears so that you get the same reward.

One last tip from Michelle's website is to try to make changes to your habits at a time of day when you are most energized. In other words, waiting for the end of the day when willpower is lowest is not a great strategy. I've mentioned this in previous blog articles such as 
When is your vulnerable hour? and Temptations and the unreliability of willpower.

How to make eating healthier easy!

Healthy eating is a challenge for many reasons. For a start, we make over 200 food choices a day which gives us many opportunities to make unwise or unintended decisions. Having a treat once in a while is fine (and recommended!) but when we start feeling guilty about the less healthy choices we've made, the thought that “I’ve blown it, I might as well go nuts” can arise. Rather than making healthier choices at the next meal or snack, people who think this way may feel that getting “back on track” that day is pointless. 

Another reason that it can be challenging is lack of time set aside to plan out meals and snacks. This includes having a rough idea of the meals you want to cook over the week, making a grocery list and preparing some of the ingredients beforehand. All of these things take time- which most of us are short on. However, practicing one or all of these things can make them easier to accomplish every week and help you feel in charge of what you eat. You could recruit some family members to help you draft out the meals they want to eat or even have a set of recipes you make every week (like chicken Mondays and beef Tuesdays). 
Gathering your favorite recipes together in the same spot (like in a box or a list that’s kept on the fridge) and choosing from them can help make meal planning easy. 
Also, starting new habits like washing and chopping celery or marinating meat before putting it away can help save time in the long run. 

Keep changes small and easy enough to carry out. Also, when deciding what changes you want to make, tackle temptations at the time of the day when energy is high (rather than low, like at the end of the day). Remembering that healthy eating is not an all or nothing goal is important too! It’s important to find what works for you and your family. So if you dislike kale or can’t eat supper before 7pm, don’t worry! There are plenty of other things you can do to eat healthy.

How to avoid dieting in 5 steps

Diets don't work. They are especially toxic for your relationship with food and your body. So what is left to do if you want to improve your eating or manage your weight? Try these tips to avoid falling back on dieting this year.

1. Reconnect with your hunger levels: everyone already has a way to "regulate" their eating and it has nothing to do with other people's diet advice. Listening to your very own hunger signals is the first step to reconnecting with your body's needs. No diet book, diet guru or meal plan will ever know how much or what you need to eat at any particular moment. Only you know what you want to eat, how much of it you need to feel satisfied and if you are truly hungry. It can seem scary at first especially if you have not relied on your own hunger cues in a long time, but chances are you will eat less if you follow your true hunger than if you ignore it. For most people who claim they are never hungry or feel fullness, chances are they have stopped listening to the cues long ago but the good news is that anyone can reconnect with these signals. This does take time and practice to get it right, but its worth the work! Read more about hunger levels and how to reconnect with them here.

2. Recognize when you are eating without being hungry: hearing your hunger (and fullness) cues is important for pointing when you are eating without hunger. Most people have eaten without feeling hungry at least once in their life. However, when this happens often it can lead to unhappiness and not actually fix the problems or emotions that are occurring. If you are not hungry, eating food does not help to relieve any sadness or loneliness or anxiety you may be experiencing. Negative emotions and situations cannot be helped with food and most people feel even worse after comforting themselves with food (especially true with people who are not intuitive eaters). First step is to acknowledge when you are eating without being hungry. After that, you can decide if you want to eat anyway, distract yourself from the craving or deal with the emotions that may be influencing you to eat.

3. Start peeling off those food labels ("good" food or "bad"): the more a food is forbidden, the more it is tempting to eat. Labeling foods as bad often does not lead to eating less of it. In fact, it often leads to binges if they are after avoided for a long time and if they are some of your favourite foods. Whats the point of avoiding, say ice cream, if you are going to binge on a pint of it at the end of the month. Just like in life, foods and nutrition are rarely just black and white. There is a lot of gray area- which can be harder to navigate than good vs bad. Again, the payoff of learning to live in a world of grays is worth the hard work. Taking the labels of foods can be scary and difficult. Some people are worried they may binge or over eat if foods are no longer off limits. However, with time the "I want what I can't have" does wear off. Often these forbidden foods taste better with a "bad" label and when that label is removed, they aren't as tasty or tempting.


4. Include all foods into your diet. This tip goes hand in hand with #3. This may mean re-introducing forbidden foods- especially if you find yourself binging on them. At first you may feel vulnerable and tempted to overindulge on these foods. However the more you practice enjoying these foods without guilt the easier it will become to eat them in moderation. When the foods become less forbidden, the need or desire to eat more than we want to, slowly goes away. Trust me- everyone thinks that this is impossible- but it will happen if you give it a chance. If you binge eat on a regular basis, you may want to enlist the help of a dietitian who specializes in eating disorders to help you with this step.

5. Write down exactly what changes you want to make. Most people know what they want to change, it's finding the way to make those changes that is the hard part. You don't need to be told to eat more fruit and veg or go to bed earlier but finding ways to carry out these changes takes effort. Focusing on actual things to change rather than "wanting to lose weight" gives you something tangible to do. Goals or changes you want to make should be action based- and wanting to lose weight or improve your relationship with food is not an action. What are you going to do to make these desires come true? Eat one fruit every day? Record your 10pm show so you can get to bed earlier? Try tracking the actions you want to take in order to remind yourself of your progress and successes.

I want to change! ...I think...

Whether you want to make a change in your eating habits or help someone else do so, it's no secret that having motivation to change is key. What is often not spoken about are the 3 parts of motivation: being ready, willing and able to change.

HOWEVER, wanting to change is not the same as being ready to make that change, being willing to do what it takes to change or having the ability to make concrete changes.

Being able to change or having the ability to change means you have the needed skills, resources, and confidence to make the change. For example, imagine a person who wants to eat more vegetables. Their ability to eat more veggies can be enhanced by knowing where to buy them, having the resources to buy them and how to prepare them. Giving tips on knowledge to help people be able to change used to be the main tasks of dietitians and other health professionals however that role has evolved.

Being willing to change is intertwined with the importance you place on changing—how much a change is wanted or desired. For example, imagine this person knows where to buy veggies, has the budget to purchase them and they have a few good recipes on how to prepare vegetables. They just don't find it worth all the effort to eat more veggies.

Being ready to change is usually the final step in which you decide to change a particular behavior. It involves making this change a priority in your life. Let's continue with the example of our friend who wants to eat more vegetables. They have all the info needed to have vegetables available to them more often. They have decided that its worth the effort to prepare them and eat them more often at meals. Being ready to make the needed changes a priority is the last step. Making this change and the necessary actions a priority such as taking an extra 5min at supper to cook the veggies rather than read the paper or prepare veggies for tomorrow;s lunch rather than watching tv, would be an example of being ready.

Usually, motivation to make a change evolves naturally in the order of ability, willingness and being ready- contrary to the well known saying!

So next time you feel stuck trying to make a change to your habits, remember to explore your ability, willingness and readiness to make that change. If you aren't, why not chose a different habit to change and go back to that one at a later time? It could save you energy and be more efficient.