Right after 9-11, I had a job that took me out of town periodically. I hadn’t been a huge fan of flying prior to that, but the increased airport hassles and heightened security issues really took my anxiety about the entire airport experience, up a couple notches. Since my arrival flights home always coincided with dinner time, and the last thing I wanted to do was cook, these nights became pizza occasions.

The stress of airports and travel made me crave a relaxing glass of red wine and some comfort food. My favorite pizza place - the one I worked at in high school - the one my family ordered from throughout my childhood - the one that made pizza that I associated with great memories - was right on my way home from the airport. I’d call in the order on my way home, and join my waiting bottle of wine at the house for a satisfying, stress-free dinner!

That was a nice little ritual when combined with my infrequent business trips once per quarter. But when I had to start flying for business more frequently, soon this harmless little pizza habit was adding up. Then it got to the point that I associated any airport travel with pizza and wine - even if I was coming home from a vacation.

I was like Pavlov’s dog, salivating as soon as the plane’s wheels hit the runway.

That was still okay, since my vacation budget didn’t allow for enough jet setting to completely turn me into a laboratory subject for pizza experiments, and I had only gained 5 pounds.

Until…..I started craving pizza and wine on any and every day that involved work stress - even when in town. (Not that any stress could compare to the anxiety I felt when being strip searched by the TSA, forgetting Airborne before breathing pressurized cabin germs, exposing feet in need of a pedicure to complete strangers, absorbing germs on my bare feet by walking where thousands of others walked before me, only to have to do it again when my watch or earrings set off the security alarm….. but some work days came close to that anxiety).

What’s the point of me telling you all this? To highlight the insidiousness of a small, seemingly harmless habit, that, when left unchecked, can wreak havoc on your diet and/or exercise program. Not that all habits have to be food related to be bad for us…..

but for women,  food tends to top the list of things we build bad habits around. 

The other day, my friend, Broke Ass Bride, wrote in her Flab To Fab post, that her stressful job had caused her bad habit of overeating to resurface. For some of us, the bad habits revolve around how much we eat, for others it’s what we eat, and for still others, as with anorexics, bad habits can be about what we don’t eat.

Even the rituals surrounding how we consume food can be self-defeating habits that are hard to break. I have a friend who stands in front of the fridge and grazes out of boredom….

An ex-office mate of mine used to mindlessly munch on chips and nuts all day long at her desk, allowing the calories to pile up without ever being conscious of just how many were going in!

Regardless of which type of bad habit you struggle with, it can impact your attempts to stay healthy, and can sometimes sabotage even the most noble efforts to develop a healthy eating plan or a new exercise plan. Getting Fit After Thirty and staying that way, will depend a great deal on successfully battling old habits.

ThinkingHabits.com explains the scientific reasons behind the difficulty of breaking a habit:

“The neural pathways….create patterns of thought. Once these pathways are created, the thoughts are likely to be repeated. This is because, the repetition of a thought decreases the biochemical resistance to that thought happening again and the connections between to brain cells on the neural pathway become stronger.”

Therefore, the brain almost works against  you, which is why you should not beat yourself up for having setbacks - it doesn’t mean you’re weak - it just means certain parts of your brain are strong! ( I like looking on the bright side). But for very engrained thought patterns that lead to habits, you will have to work hard to rid yourself of them.

The consensus seems to be, just as Broke Ass Bride mentions, that replacing an old habit with a new one is how to retrain the brain. I know, I know. Committing to new habits is a challenge. But I’ve borrowed 18 great tips on how to make new habits stick, from LifeHack.org.

Here they are:

1. Commit to Thirty Days - Three to four weeks is all the time you need to make a habit automatic. If you can make it through the initial conditioning phase, it becomes much easier to sustain. A month is a good block of time to commit to a change since it easily fits in your calendar.
2. Make it Daily - Consistency is critical if you want to make a habit stick. If you want to start exercising, go to the gym every day for your first thirty days. Going a couple times a week will make it harder to form the habit. Activities you do once every few days are trickier to lock in as habits.

3. Start Simple - Don’t try to completely change your life in one day. It is easy to get over-motivated and take on too much. If you wanted to study two hours a day, first make the habit to go for thirty minutes and build on that.

4. Remind Yourself - Around two weeks into your commitment it can be easy to forget. Place reminders to execute your habit each day or you might miss a few days. If you miss time it defeats the purpose of setting a habit to begin with.

5. Stay Consistent - The more consistent your habit the easier it will be to stick. If you want to start exercising, try going at the same time, to the same place for your thirty days. When cues like time of day, place and circumstances are the same in each case it is easier to stick.

6. Get a Buddy - Find someone who will go along with you and keep you motivated if you feel like quitting.

7. Form a Trigger - A trigger is a ritual you use right before executing your habit. If you wanted to wake up earlier, this could mean waking up in exactly the same way each morning. If you wanted to quit smoking you could practice snapping your fingers each time you felt the urge to pick up a cigarette.

8. Replace Lost Needs - If you are giving up something in your habit, make sure you are adequately replacing any needs you’ve lost. If watching television gave you a way to relax, you could take up meditation or reading as a way to replace that same need.

9. Be Imperfect - Don’t expect all your attempts to change habits to be successful immediately. It took me four independent tries before I started exercising regularly. Now I love it. Try your best, but expect a few bumps along the way.

10. Use “But” - A prominent habit changing therapist once told me this great technique for changing bad thought patterns. When you start to think negative thoughts, use the word “but” to interrupt it. “I’m no good at this, but, if I work at it I might get better later.”

11. Remove Temptation - Restructure your environment so it won’t tempt you in the first thirty days. Remove junk food from your house, cancel your cable subscription, throw out the cigarettes so you won’t need to struggle with willpower later.

12. Associate With Role Models - Spend more time with people who model the habits you want to mirror. A recent study found that having an obese friend indicated you were more likely to become fat. You become what you spend time around.

13. Run it as an Experiment - Withhold judgment until after a month has past and use it as an experiment in behavior. Experiments can’t fail, they just have different results so it will give you a different perspective on changing your habit.

14. Swish - A technique from NLP. Visualize yourself performing the bad habit. Next visualize yourself pushing aside the bad habit and performing an alternative. Finally, end that sequence with an image of yourself in a highly positive state. See yourself picking up the cigarette, see yourself putting it down and snapping your fingers, finally visualize yourself running and breathing free. Do it a few times until you automatically go through the pattern before executing the old habit.

15. Write it Down - A piece of paper with a resolution on it isn’t that important. Writing that resolution is. Writing makes your ideas more clear and focuses you on your end result.

16. Know the Benefits - Familiarize yourself with the benefits of making a change. Get books that show the benefits of regular exercise. Notice any changes in energy levels after you take on a new diet. Imagine getting better grades after improving your study habits.

17. Know the Pain - You should also be aware of the consequences. Exposing yourself to realistic information about the downsides of not making a change will give you added motivation.

18. Do it For Yourself - Don’t worry about all the things you “should” have as habits. Instead tool your habits towards your goals and the things that motivate you. Weak guilt and empty resolutions aren’t enough.

So, implement as many as you can, and get yourself some newer, healthier habits! Your *f.a.t. self is counting on you!