Turn Your Bad Habits into Good Ones

Want to get healthier and lose weight at the same time? It seems that changing your mind-set and routine could be the thing to help you get started!

I think we can all agree that the hardest part about going to the gym or eating right is the initial commitment to actually go to the gym and choose vegetables over Oreos. It's the bad habit mind-set that people are stuck in that make the switch to good habits hard.

According to a column in The Washington Post, Norman Doidge, psychiatric researcher and author, doctor's used to "prescribe" vacations so that people could get away from their every day lives - hence changing their routine and eventually their mind-set.

This vacation can mean many things today:

• Change of jobs
  
• Moving from current residence
• Visiting new places
• Surrounding yourself with new people
• Taking different street routes
  

The point is to make changes, even if they're small, in your routine so that it will become easier to insert positive habits like working out or eating healthier into your new schedule.

The trick is not to commit yourself to something too drastic up-front like telling yourself that you'll now only be eating tofu and drinking prune juice. This kind of commitment is limiting and unrealistic.

The take home here is to start small and dream big!