Eliminating a bad habit

Speaking of diet, I had read of an article in Medscape stating that red meat intake increases mortality risk. From the study, it was estimated that 9.3% of deaths in men and 7.6% of deaths in women could have been prevented if all participants consumed fewer than 0.5 servings of total red meat daily. Estimates were 8.6% in men and 12.2% in women for deaths from cardiovascular disease (CVD). You may read the article here...http://bit.ly/IkxYaB.

Tsk tsk tsk, it gets harder and harder everyday. Sooner or later with the researches they keep on bringing up, all the good and savory foodstuff that makes you pig out with the gang will soon be prohibited.

Joking aside, there are so many supposedly bad habits we have to get rid of or correct and we do know that if we succeed in eliminating them, we could have reached our goals earlier. Let's take smoking as an example, whenever I talk with my patients and discourage them from smoking again, they would automatically tell me it would be very hard to impossible coz they had been smoking for decades and they would end up crazy if they did this.

But when my chain smoker patients end up in the ICU for an acute MI or an attack of COPD ( chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), it's so clear that they could not touch even a single stick of cigarette for the next few days/weeks while in the hospital and...they will still keep their sanity. No wonder those discharged from medical confinement are more likely to succeed in quitting smoking than the outpatients. My observation is that it takes a strong situation or an intense emotion to make a radical change in one's habits.

A technique I learned in eliminating a bad habit is not by focusing and thinking about it. Even if you say "I will not eat carelessly red meat in large amounts" a hundred times and concentrate on avoiding it, at the end of the day, these two words will still stick with you.....RED MEAT.

Rather, we should affirm something positive (when out of the way from indulging in red meat). Something like "I enjoy eating green leafy vegetables and fresh fish and salmon", " I eat wheat bread and lots of fiber", "I grow leaner and leaner everyday", "I begin to look fit and attractive", "I have good endurance and health because of the food I eat". Creatively visualize each scene...savor the taste of the veggies, salmon, and the freshly baked wheat bread...run a kilometer in your mind without catching your bread...make the opposite sex look and admire you when you walk amongst them.  This affirmation technique should be done 5-10 minutes 3x a day and live by them. Focus on the good benefits of the alternative route.

A bad habit is the by product of loneliness & lack of trust in God's love and is really a poor exchange for something bigger, better, and right for you.    - Bo Sanchez

So put your habits in alignment with your goals and dream it.

Happy dreaming!