Healthchat

Conversations about optimal health.


Habit #3 Responsibility vs Resistance

All healthy habits require action but the action originates in your mind. You think of it before doing it unless you are touching a hot stove and then the recoil bypasses the brain and becomes automatic.

I am a food addict and when I stuff my emotions with food it is hard to take personal responsibility for my actions. I blame my obesity on my genetics or on the eating habits that I learned from my parents. The choice to eat is mine but I feel pressured into it by circumstances and feelings.

Conversely when I am building healthy habits around food and exercise it is always someone else’s idea to give up sugar and refined flour and get up in the morning to go to the gym. The resistance l feel when starting a new eating plan comes from putting the responsibility for success on the plan, not owning it as my idea, my choice.

I am 67 years old. No one is making me do this, not my mother or my children, my trainer or society. I choose to be a healthier version of myself. These are my plans, I own them and will follow them because I am committed to a new life with new habits. When I take full responsibility for my life choices and totally own my day, my resistance melts away because no one is making me do this but me.

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