Discipline

Last week was horrible but thankfully its over. Kiddo is on antibiotics but the swelling is completely gone and most of the hives have disappeared as well. She's taking the medicine without a fuss and getting more lively every day-its wonderful to have her back to her old self.

The stress knocked us for a loop and we reverted to old habits, pizza, beer, and ice cream being the worse of the culprits. The good thing was we ate up the rest of the high-carb, non-primal foods that were hiding in cabinets and the freezer. Over the weekend we were fairly primal and now its time to buckle down and break these bad habits. We both have the Wanna, its just discipline and denying short-term satisfaction that we have problems with.

I read a very interesting blog piece yesterday about discipline and what it really means. In a nutshell it says discipline is creating a constant habit. And conventional wisdom says it takes about 4 weeks to develop a new habit. So, even with the negative reinforcement we get when we eat cruddy (tummy trouble, lethargy, migraines) we haven't broken our old eating habits and developed new ones since we only seem to manage to stay on track for a week or two at a time. It's not lack of self-discipline, it's lack of giving the way of eating time to become a habit.

Here's the link if you want to read it yourself, I found it fascinating : Zen Habits:Discipline

That may be why Whole30 has had such great results for others. If they could get through those 30 days of super-healthy eating they removed their old habits and replaced them with healthier ones. It makes me hopeful that it is possible to break the cycle we seem to be on and get rid of the weight that is dragging us down.