Darya Rose, a popular writer and world renowned expert in health and weight loss spoke at our December SOUL Food Salon event. She is the author of the 2013 book Foodist: Using Real Food and Real Science to Lose Weight Without Dieting, and creator of the award-winning blog, Summer Tomato, which TIME Magazine named one of the 50 Best Websites.
Darya’s unique, brain-based approach to food, health and weight loss helped teach us not just what healthy eating looks like, but how to actually change our behaviors so we can stop wishing for and actually make meaningful progress toward healthier living.
SOME KEY POINTS:
Health is an issue of psychology, not nutrition.
Willpower is exhaustible and does not work in the long run.
Eat for awesomeness!
Don't pay attention to the small stuff.
Eat greens at lunch and dinner.
Life should be awesome.
HABITS:
An automatic action that happens in a response to a trigger. Habits do not require willpower, they happen automatically.
There needs to be a trigger and a reward for habits to stick. Reward reinforces the trigger. This is the key to forming habits. Rewards need to be directly associated with the action. For example, exercise has to feel good. It has to be positive.
90% of food choices are habit based.
To form habits- consistency is more important than intensity.
HOME COURT HABITS: These are the foundation of your healthstyle. Everyone’s home court habits will be different. These are considered your biggest-impact habits that are necessary for continued healthstyle success. If you alter from these habits, maintainence of your healthstyle will have negative consequences.
Examples of home court habits:
Eating breakfast
Cooking at home
Eating mindfully
Walking 10,000 steps a day
Realize that there are days and circumstances where one or more home court habit is missed. If this happens too often, you will need to make some adjustments to these habits so you can stay in your zone.
Home court habits are the mechanism by which you maintain your weight and your long-term happiness.