Changing habits with Habit Changer – 385th Edition

By admin · Sunday, March 21st, 2010

I was offered the chance to try a habit changing program by the folks at Habit Changer. They asked if I’d take one of their 42-day programs and then blog about it–whether my “experience was positive or not.” I decided I could live with that so accepted. This is my review:
Habit Changer is a web-based application that uses cognitive behavior therapy and neuroplasticity to help participants recognize current beliefs and behaviours and replace them with a different perspective.

Habit Changer uses a system of positive messages and activities to help users jump-start a reversal of that negative pattern.

The four most popular programs offered are Losing Weight, Stop Stressing, Money & You, and Feeding Your Kids, but there are several other programs offered as well. Most cost $19.95 but the Feeding Your Kids program is free.

I chose Losing Weight 2 as my option. You are supposed to be at goal or close to it for this program so I figured why not. :p

Every day I’ve been getting two emails from Habit Changer on a topic, along with a daily challenge. Later in the day I get another email that reinforces the lesson of the day. You can also set it up so that it sends messages to your cellphone and what not but I don’t like being bothered that much so I didn’t use that functionality.

In the beginning I found the experience quite good and I was keen to see the daily email.

One that I found quite relevant to my journey was an email about mindfulness. I’ll reproduce it here so you can get an idea what it was like:

Day 15: Mindful Eating – 1

Mindful eating is one of the simplest, easiest, and yet most powerful tools you have to stay in control of what you eat. Mindful eating simply means being conscious of what you’re doing and why while you’re doing it.

How do we know this works? Well, it turns out that higher mindfulness is correlated with lower body mass index. Meaning that if you’re mindful about eating, you’re likely to be thinner. Permanently.

By definition, being mindful requires slowing down slightly. It takes a little attention to think about what you’re doing, and the food you’re eating. Cultures that have long slow meals tend to be far more mindful — they spend time enjoying the food, not just putting it in — but you don’t have to take all day to eat a meal in order to be mindful. If you can consciously focus even for a moment on what you’re doing, you’re on the way.

Today

Try the mindfulness questionnaire below.

How did you do? What do you need to work on?

Tomorrow we’ll do an actual experiment.

Questionnaire:

What would be your answer to each of the following questions?

I eat so fast that I don’t taste what I’m eating.

I notice when having delicious food around me makes me want to eat more food than I ought to.

When someone serves me a portion that’s too large, I’m able to stop when I’m full.

I tend to think about other things while I’m eating.

I don’t recognize when I’ve had enough.

I notice the flavors in the foods I eat.

I eat without noticing that I am eating.

I think about the taste of every bit of food that I eat.

I stop eating when I’m full, even if it’s something really delicious.

While I’m eating I think about things I need to get done.

I take time to stop and enjoy the colors and smells of my food.

I realize it when I’m eating even though I’m not hungry.

If you are thinking: I don’t have time to think about anything else! I need to eat on the run! I barely have time to eat at all!

Try this instead: It’s easy. Just spend a moment thinking about each bite. It doesn’t take long at all. I’ll enjoy it more, and I’ll stay at my goal weight far more easily.

However, after a while I started to find the daily emails a bit annoying and to be honest the last week or so I barely read them. That’s probably a failing of mine rather than of the program.

I think there is a lot of value in the system if you are serious about changing your habits and haven’t learnt these lessons yourself already. I think I’ve picked up most of them by reading your blogs so they were maybe not as helpful to me as they might be to others.

Having said that I’ve had nothing but success in my weightloss efforts since I’ve started the program so who knows!

If you would be interested in trying any of their other programs, please feel free to Try any Habit Changer Program at a discounted rate

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