The dish on parenting ... check out the new ParentDish!

Teaching an old dog new tricks

Posted: May 6th 2008 1:00PM by Bethany Sanders
Filed under: Fitness, General Health, Healthy Habits, Diet and Weight Loss

Old habits are like a bad penny, they keep turning up. Many people think that to lose weight or build fitness, they simply need to stop doing the things that keep them from reaching their goals. While that's true, it's not enough to just say you're going to stop reaching for donuts in the break room or stop eating entire bags of nacho chips while watching TV. Instead, you have to replace those bad habits with new ones.

According to this NYT article, taking just tiny steps outside of your comfort zone can challenge your brain, leading to the creation of new synaptic paths and new brain cells. The idea isn't to make such a huge leap that you stress yourself out, but to make small steps so that your brain can build new pathways and create new habits.

So try this today -- write down three old habits that are standing in between you and your health and fitness goals. Then, create three healthier habits that you will do instead. Practice those new habits diligently, and before you know it, you'll lose those old habits that keep you from living the life that you want.

Related Headlines

Add your comments

Please keep your comments relevant to this blog entry. Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments.

When you enter your name and email address, you'll be sent a link to confirm your comment, and a password. To leave another comment, just use that password.

To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br> tags.

New Users

Current Users



That's Fit Features





Life Fit with Laura Lewis

How many calories burned? What is my BMI?
More weight loss tools!


Features
Ask Fitz! (60)
Ask Laura! (8)
ATIO: Summer Quick Fix Challenge (3)
ATIO: Wednesday Weigh-In (2)
ATIO: Weekly Weight-loss Results (2)
Body Bloggers (53)
Celebrity Fitzness Report (31)
Daily Fit Tip (332)
Fit Beauty (72)
Fit Factor (79)
Fit Gadgets (12)
Fit Links (84)
Fit Mama (10)
Fit Pregnancy (22)
Fitku (9)
FitSpirit (39)
FitTV (6)
Fitzness Fiends (52)
Gut Busters (4)
Healthy Handful (11)
How Many Calories? (89)
Jogging for Normal People (17)
Jumpstart Your Fitness (80)
Life Fit Chat with Laura Lewis (87)
Life Fit with Laura Lewis (46)
Meet the Bloggers (20)
One Small Step (7)
Podcasts (43)
Recipe Rehab (22)
Retro Review (3)
Road To Fitville (15)
Stress Less (21)
Taking Off Ten (12)
The 5 (30)
The Daily Turn On! (94)
We Love To Gawk At Fit Celebs (23)
We Love To Gawk At Fit Celebs Weekly Roundup (17)
Week In Review (43)
Working In the Workouts (42)
Workplace Fitness (80)
You Are What You Eat (60)
Your Turn (19)
Healthy Living
Alternative Therapies (267)
Book Reviews (74)
Celebrities (626)
Cellulite (158)
Diet and Weight Loss (2110)
Eco-Travel (62)
Emotional Health (1165)
Fit Fashion (53)
Fitness (2877)
Food and Nutrition (3641)
General Health (4802)
Health and Technology (621)
Health in the Media (1127)
HealthWatch (312)
Healthy Aging (622)
Healthy Events (99)
Healthy Habits (1901)
Healthy Home (401)
Healthy Kids (1349)
Healthy Places (213)
Healthy Products (830)
Healthy Recipes (247)
Healthy Relationships (270)
Men's Health (1096)
Natural Beauty (213)
Natural Products (213)
Obesity (192)
Organic (198)
Spirituality and Inspiration (234)
Stress Reduction (465)
Sustainable Community (203)
Vegetarian (234)
Vitamins and Supplements (256)
Women's Health (1590)
Work/Home Balance (169)

RESOURCES

Powered by Blogsmith

Featured Stories

Sponsored Links

Most Commented On (60 days)

Recent Comments


Aches, pains? Find out what your symptoms mean:

Weblogs, Inc. Network

Other Weblogs Inc. Network blogs you might be interested in: