Below is a thought provoking article.

 
Habits are the Solution, Not the Problem

by

Dr. Amy Johnson Ph.D.

There’s something quite intuitive about the fact that the more attention we pay something the more a part of our experience it becomes.

Shower your plants, children, hobbies, or relationships with attention and they not only thrive, they become a bigger part of your life.

Stare at–or even just think about–that cut on your leg and suddenly you feel the pain. It’s been there as long as it’s been there, but it becomes real for you when you look. Your attention brings it to life.
 
So, it’s ironic that we also tend to stare at and focus on our unwanted habits in the name of making them better. We track them. We monitor how we’re doing. We hone in on “I did it again”, or “three days habit-free!”
 
It looks like the unwanted habit—the part of it that we see–is the problem. If you shop, smoke, or gamble, shopping, smoking, or gambling is the thing affecting your life. Those are the specific behaviors that are wrecking your finances, relationships, and health. They are clearly the problem, so they are clearly the thing to focus on and change.
 
Except they aren’t.
 
They are actually the solution.

The “problem” (which the quotes indicate is not actually a problem), is that we aren’t feeling like ourselves. We’re feeling off base and in our cloudy-minded state, our habit appears to take the edge off our discomfort.
 
Our mind instantly suggests (sometimes demands) your habit as a solution. Feeling something you’d rather not? Eat this! It’ll take your mind off of your problems (and it does, for a minute). Feeling weighed down by urges to do your habit? Do that habit! That will make those urges go away (and it does, temporarily).
 
Our habits get us a tiny bit closer to home. Habits are solutions to the “problem” of not feeling well.
 
Not being at home is not actually a problem at all because we’re always moving in and out of feelings states. Our minds are always filling up a bit and then quieting down a bit, no different than waves on the ocean crash more or less forcefully on the shore.
 
When your high emotions calm down, your need for your habit will too. There is nothing to fix, there is only this to understand.
 
There is a great irony in the work I do with people who want to be rid of habits and addictions. The more we talk about the habit, how it shows up, what it all means… the more of a problem it tends to look like.
 
As we shift away from that focus on the specifics of the habit and look more to the nature of our experience, how the habit operates as a solution, how our human experience flows through us…the less a problem the habit appears to be and the less caught up in it we feel.
 
Of course we talk about the habit to some extent, but we don’t stop there. We don’t problem-solve or trouble-shoot the habit itself because the habit isn’t the problem.
 
If we trouble-shoot anything, it’s our misunderstanding about life. Understanding how this being human thing truly works is where freedom lies.

Today,
I modified the graphics and specifics of my current diet experiment....because I can.  See day-before-yesterday's April 10 blog for the graphics of my previous plan.

The reason for this modification was that when my (Down) Fast day turns into an (Up) Fed day, I need the following day to be a (Down) Fast day.   Otherwise, it seems likely that I'm going to wind up with weeks full of (Up) Fed days. 

At present I'm having too many unsuccessful Fast (Down) days to be able to predict exactly which days will be Fed (Up) days and which days will be Fast (Down) days each week.  So, for a while, it looks like I'll be jumping back and forth between Week 1 & 2 days at random.

See my April 10 blog to see details of my previous plan.

MY CURRENT PLAN:
My UP days are based on my own personal Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) which is close to 1,000 calories.  Adding 10% brings it up to a total of about 1,100.  My plan calls for 3 weekly UP days.

My DOWN days of about 300 calories are close to ¼ (25%) of my TDEE.  My plan calls for 3 weekly DOWN days.

1,100 plus 300 equals 1,400 divided by 2 equals 700 calories… Therefore a 2 week rotation of this pattern would result in a total Average calorie intake of 700 calories daily.

I have changed my plan to remove the MEDIUM day of about 700 calories from weekly rotation as I have decided to only include it occasionaly.

I am 71 years old, 5'0" tall, and an inactive, reduced obese female (high weight 271 lbs) who has been maintaining a normal BMI for 10+ years, and my individual TDEE of about 1,000 is low, but not “abnormally” low.

For ME, an average daily intake of 700 calories should create a daily deficit of about 300 calories, and … according to the 3,500 calorie rule… result in a weight-loss of about ½ pound per week.

FOR PERSPECTIVE:
To bring my calorie counts into proper perspective...
note that the well-known and frequenlty-used Mifflin formula gives an "AVERAGE" person of my age, size, and activity level, a TDEE of 1150 calories, and a BMR of 985. 

I've been keeping computer records of my calorie intake & weight every day now for about 12 years, and so I know that my own TDEE is about 100 calories or so below the "AVERAGE". 

Women who are younger, taller, heavier, and more active often have very little understanding or knowledge of how low the TDEE is for a short, light, inactive elderly woman... and of course, it is even less for a "reduced obese" one.

For those people who think my TDEE calculation is too low.... HERE's a little personal lesson.
Click this link to get access to one of the online calculators that use Mifflin to determine both BMR & TDEE.  If you are a female use it to run your own numbers. After you've done that .... try changing your own age to 71, and moving yourself to "Inactive"... Look at your numbers change.  Now, change your height to 5'0".... Quite a difference, right?...  Now give yourself ...as an elderly, short, inactive person... a BMI of around 22.5 (which is somewhere near the middle of a "normal"  BMI)  by setting your weight at 115 pounds.... Now, look at the resulting numbers.... which should be around 985 BMR, and 1150 TDEE.