Omphaloskepsis, Part 1

After a lovely two-week vacation during which I gave myself permission to eat the potato chips (and pretty much everything else that crossed the threshold), it is time to return to ordinary life.  Including, alas, facing the fact that all of the pictures that were taken for our parents' Christmas cards are going to include me looking pretty saggy.

Good thing Christmas comes every year.  I have some time to do something about it, assuming the Mayans were wrong about 2012.

I did take the time to identify several habits that are contributing to the things about my figure that I find unsatisfactory.  And I should take a moment to point out that while I'm complaining about my appearance in the family portraits at the moment, what I am also unhappy about is my overall fitness.  I am not an athlete, but I have had periods in my life when I was very fit and pleased with what my body could do.  For several years I took yoga classes, which was awesome not only for my flexibility but also for my sense of calm and my feelings of connectedness in my spiritual life.  At several different times in my life I have been a fairly strenuous walker, at my best covering as much as 6 miles a day, three days a week.  When I trained for the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3 Day, I walked 6 miles a day during the week, and then 10-17 miles on Saturdays.

What has happened to me?

Here are a few habits I have fallen into that keep me from being the person I want to be:

1. Not exercising regularly.  This is bad for me not just because I'm not burning off the bad food choices I make, but because I'm depriving myself of the satisfaction that kept me from overeating in the first place.  I gradually gave it up when the house was on the market, after one too many notices that the house was going to be shown during the time I had designated for exercise.
2. Reading while I eat.  I definitely, definitely overeat when I'm not focusing on my food.  I noticed this one the most while I was on vacation; the thought of not reading while I munched my lunch, quietly, away from other people, was so uncomfortable that it almost sent me into a panic.  This is where I will begin applying what I've learned from The Power of Habit. 
3. Not having a plan for my breakfasts, lunches, and snacks.  I have no problem with portion control at dinner time, but my earlier meals are sometimes a little haphazard.  Because of poor planning during those times of day, I often go too long between meals and then end up starving and shaking so badly that I feel like I have to stuff myself during the mid-afternoon.  I'm hoping that the measures I'm considering for Item #2 will help alleviate this problem.
4. Too much alcohol.  It's only a glass or two a night, but considering what sugar does to one's metabolism, and also the fact that I can't drink when I'm training for something because it makes me feel horrible, I probably should cut back.  A lot.  Although that might be a habit I tackle later, when I've worked out to do about the reading while I eat thing.

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg describes a habit loop, whereby a cue triggers a behavior or routine, which, when completed, is rewarded by a kind of neuro-chemical shot.  The initial description of the loop is established by recounting an experiment in which a rat is placed behind a closed gate, which opens with a click.  The rat then makes its way down a very simple maze to find a bit of chocolate, which it then eats.  Over time, the chocolate becomes associated with the click, in what most people would describe as a Pavlovian response.  Duhigg illustrates it thusly:

In my case, the need to eat a meal when I am alone (or when I wish I were alone) is the cue or click.  Reading the book while eating is the routine.  I have identified that a sense of relaxation is the reward, and that when I am anxious or reluctant to take on a project (like the laundry) that is on my agenda, then I will stretch out the experience of relaxation by adding portions to my meal.  Sometimes, a lot of portions.  The challenge will be to figure out how to meet my need for relaxation (in spite of the difficulty I find in relaxing generally) without continuing the problematic behavior.

According to Duhigg, you can change a habit, but you can't kill it.  So I won't be able to simply stop reading while I eat and expect that to go well.  Neurologically, I need something to disrupt the routine part of the loop while retaining the reward.  To do this, I'm going to have to poke around a little bit.  

Duhigg also stresses the importance of having a plan for tackling a behavior.  I don't really have one.  But lucky me, some of the other ingredients for successfully altering habits are including a community and Belief.  You, lovely readers, are my community, and Belief... well, that is going to have to develop.  (In the book, Belief generally came about as a result of some sort of crisis.  I'm not sure unflattering family pictures are enough of a crisis to generate the belief necessary to make this happen, but here's hoping.)  

By tomorrow I will have a Plan A to share, as well as a few measurements to incite me to victory.  I will also share some highlights of going on vacation for 2 weeks (I flew with an underweight suitcase, hurray!!) and of coming home (I still love my baking soda and my reusable grocery bags!).  And later this week, I will be introducing a new tab to the blog... are you on the edge of your seats?

Thanks for being my community, friends!

Putting It Into Practice

So I found The Power of Habit to be pretty empowering.  Just how empowering, I'm ready to put into practice.   Here's the deal:  I'd like to lose eight pounds, and if I'm successful, then an additional eight pounds, for a total weight loss goal of sixteen pounds.  I know from the last few months that simply wishing the weight away doesn't work.  Unfortunately.  However, I think that this time I have a better understanding of what I need to do to succeed.

Review: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business

Every morning when I get up, I stagger to the kitchen, get out my stainless steel travel mug and set it on the counter next to the coffee pot, then get out the half and half and pour in an amount that is determined by the place where the cup narrows to fit the cupholder in the car, put the half and half away, and then pour the coffee on top.  Then I rotate the cup so the handle is on the right side and ease the lid on so that the coffee doesn't splash through the sipping hole.

Why do I do it that way?

Charles Duhigg knows.

More precisely, Charles Duhigg knows which parts of my brain direct those functions and the mechanism by which that sequence of events became automatic.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg, came to my attention through an NPR interview, when I caught a segment of the conversation in which he describes his efforts to stop a mid-afternoon chocolate chip cookie habit.  He uses that example in his book as well:

As an example, let's say you have a bad habit, like I did when I started researching this book, of going to the cafeteria and buying a chocolate chip cookie every afternoon.  Let's say this habit has caused you to gain a few pounds.  In fact, let's say this habit has caused you to gain exactly eight pounds, and that your wife has made a few pointed comments.  You've tried to force yourself to stop -- you even went so far as to put a Post-it on your computer that reads no more cookies. 

But every afternoon you manage to ignore that note, get up, wander toward the cafeteria, buy a cookie, and, while chatting with colleagues around the cash register, eat it.  It feels good, and then it feels bad.  Tomorrow, you promise yourself, you'll muster the willpower to resist.  Tomorrow will be different. 

But tomorrow the habit takes hold again.

pp. 273-274

Sounded quite familiar.

Following a prologue in which a subject transforms utterly transforms herself, Duhigg lays out the structure of the book.  "Part One: The Habits of Individuals" is broken into three chapters.

Chapter 1, "The Habit Loop" describes the (wait for it...) the habit loop, which is the foundation for everything that follows.  This is a 3-step process, in which a cue triggers a routine which is reinforced by a reward.  Duhigg does a great job of describing the science that describes this pattern, and the science which explains it, without making the information so dry that you can't absorb it.

Chapter 2, "The Craving Brain," examines individuals who suffered neurological damage and the impact that habits had on their ability to perform various functions and routines.  This chapter had heart: imagining the daily lives of these individuals and their caregivers brought some real drama to the study of how habits operate in our brains.  The point of the chapter was basically that habits are surprisingly delicate, to use Duhigg's term, and can be easily disrupted, with the right information.

Chapter 3, "The Golden Rule of Habit Change: Why Transformation Occurs" focused on the coaching career of of NFL coach Tony Dungy, and how he used his understanding of habits to transform the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Indiana Colts.  The Golden Rule is You can't extinguish a bad habit, you can only change it.  Midway through Chapter 3 Duhigg breaks away from NFL to consider Alcoholics Anonymous.  If Chapter 2 is the heart of Part One, then Chapter 3 is the soul: both AA and Dungy's football program achieve their greatest success when the people operating under their respective guidance both arrive at belief in something greater than the individual.  Duhigg shares more than that in this chapter, but there is a ton of information in this chapter about how habits can be disrupted to make way for more positive patterns.

Parts Two and Three are where a lot of other reviewers have faulted Duhigg, even calling the information in these sections "filler."  These address "The Habits of Successful Organizations" (Part Two), and "The Habits of Societies" (Part Three).  I did not find these sections to be filler, but powerful illustrations of how a thorough understanding of the mechanisms behind habits can provide the tools for large scale change, and a discussion of the nature of personal responsibility.

In Chapter Four, "Keystone Habits, Or the Ballad of Paul O'Neill: Which Habits Matter Most," Duhigg offers Paul O'Neill of Alcoa to illustrate how altering a single habit in an organization (albeit in a highly focused and disciplined manner) can transform the total organization.

Chapter Five, "Starbucks and the Habit of Success," opens with a powerful story of a young man who was raised by drug addicts, and his subsequent struggles to maintain his employment.  His pattern of failure changed when he went to work at Starbucks.  This chapter discusses the importance of willpower and its limitations, how willpower can be strengthened, and planning for success.

Chapter Six, "The Power of a Crisis," uses the examples of doctor error in a Rhode Island hospital, which Duhigg asserts was made inevitable by the toxic atmosphere in the workplace, and a fire in King's Cross Station, London, which was made inevitable by strictly observed divisions of labor, to provide opportunities for transforming the cultures of those two organizations into something stronger and more effective than could have been created as Paul O'Neill did, just by sheer force of leadership.

Chapter Seven, "How Target Knows What You Want Before You Do" is probably the most widely read section of the book, as it was excerpted by the New York Times (Duhigg's employer) and Forbes, among others.  It's readable and informative, and fairly creepy in disclosing how much information we unwittingly distribute about ourselves, and how unlikely we are to curtail the activities that make it possible for Target to know a woman is pregnant before any of her immediate family members do.

Several reviewers have described these sections as "filler," but I found that they addressed complaints common to people who claim to want to change their habits but lack willpower, and provided guideposts to an attentive reader for what qualities set one up for success.  I personally found that, although the sections were more directly addressing corporate bodies, that the information was driven by the individuals within those organizations and therefore applicable to me and my own private attempts to alter my habits.

Part Three was an interesting summing up.  Chapter Eight, "Saddleback Church and the Montgomery Bus Boycott" addressed the components that made those movements (if one can call a mega-church a movement) successful.  The Montgomery Bus Boycott, particularly, was really interesting: we celebrate Rosa Parks's heroism, deservedly, but the fact is, several other individuals had made similar stands without sparking the Civil Rights Movement.  Duhigg's explanation for why Parks had the right stuff to make it happen makes for informative reading (the short version being, Parks was a genuinely nice and widely connected member of Montgomery society).

Chapter Nine, "The Neurology of Free Will: Are We Responsible for Our Habits?" puts all the preceding information in perspective.  It contrasts Brian Thomas, an Englishman who killed his wife while sleepwalking, with Angie Bachmann, a compulsive gambler who lost many hundreds of thousands of dollars.  He describes the neurology of sleepwalking activity and of a compulsive activity such as gambling (or drinking, or binge eating) and concludes:

Hundreds of habits influence our days -- they guide how we get dressed in the morning, talk to our kids, and fall asleep at night... Each of them has a different cue and offers a unique reward.  Some are simple and others are complex, drawing upon emotional triggers and offering subtle neurochemical prizes.  But every habit, no matter its complexity, is malleable.  The most addicted alcoholics can become sober.  The most dysfunctional companies can transform themselves.  A high school dropout can become a successful manager. 

However, to modify a habit, you must decide to change it.  You must consciously accept the hard work of identifying the cues and rewards that drive the habits' routines, and find alternatives.  You must know you have control and be self-conscious enough to use it -- and every chapter in this book is devoted to illustrating a different aspect of why that control is real.  [italics original]

pages 269-270

The information provided in the body of the book was enough for me to understand how to create a road map for how to change my habits, but Duhigg did provide a digest of the material in his Appendix, "A Reader's Guide to Using These Ideas."

Overall, I found this book to be both readable and powerful, and I look forward to implementing what I've learned to further my own goals.  Five Stars.