Even before you start your weight loss plan it quickly becomes clear that things will have to change for you to become successful.  You need to change your habits surrounding buying, preparing and eating foods as well as make changes to increase your activity to burn more calories.  So changing habits or behaviors is fundamental to any weight loss program.  Perhaps a more accurate way of putting this is that you need to substitute healthier behaviors that bring about weight loss for your usual unhealthy ones.  You don’t just stop a habit or behavior, you replace it.  Until these new behaviors become automatic you will need to consciously remind yourself to substitute them for your old habits.  You will need to use tricks to help you remember.  With time it will become easier, but when you first start you will need all the help you can get. 

With that in mind, I developed a web site to help support anyone in their journey to reach a healthier weight.  It is www.InsightsForHealth.com and all its tools are free.  It has many features to help you in your quest, and I’ll describe them in more detail in future posts.  But perhaps the one most useful to use when you are trying to remember to substitute your new healthier habits is Health-e Thoughts Text Messages.  These are text message reminders that you schedule yourself to help you change some common unhealthy habits.  They cover:

•          At Home Breakfast
•          At Home Lunch
•          At Home Dinner
•          Exercising At Home
•          Healthy Eating When Out Of Town
•          Exercising When Out Of Town
•          Eating Out
•          Grocery Shopping
•          Morning Snacks
•          Afternoon Snacks
•          Evening Snacks

For example, if you find one of your greatest weaknesses involves eating unhealthy evening snacks, you could set up text reminders to occur at certain times in the evening for as many days as you want.  Then around the time when you are ready to open that bag of chips you would get a text to help you resist that habit and substitute a healthier one. 

Click here to read more details.  If you want to try Health-e Thought Text Messages, just follow the steps to register and in a few minutes you’ll be able to schedule these helpful text reminders to help you make those healthy behavior changes. 

Remember, while we don’t charge a fee for this service, any applicable text message charges from your cell phone carrier will apply.

For Your Health – Dr. Bob