Ep29 Transcript – Identifying Triggers and Responses in Habits – Top Takeaways

Andrea Vahl: Hey, late starters, it’s your host, Andrea Vahl, and in today’s top takeaways episode, I’m going to dive a little bit deeper into making a major diet change just like Tom Petty did in episode 28. We’re going to talk about how you make a change when it’s not a life-or-death situation like it was for Tom’s wife. I think what it comes down to is identifying habit loops and triggers and responses you have in your daily life.

Intro: Hello dreamers. Welcome to the Late Starters Club, giving you the inspiration mindset and tools you need to start something midlife and beyond. Remember, it’s never too late to follow your dreams.

Andrea Vahl: If you haven’t listened to Tom’s episode yet, I highly recommend you do. It’s an inspirational story about how he and his wife overcame some major health challenges by addressing the situation with diet.

In their case, it was a little bit easier to make that change because it was a matter literally of life and death. But for the rest of us, I think it really comes down to our brains and deciding to make a major change and training our brains in a different way. And I think that comes down to habits.

I did take a look at the book, Tom recommended Grain Brain, and I really liked it. It had a lot of research in it that was pretty heavy. But one of the things I really liked was all the recipes he had in it with different ways you could cook a delicious meal and not be using those grains. And I know as a bread lover, this can be challenging.

Bread. Bread. Oh, I love you. Bread.

One of the changes I’m going to be making is to really be conscious of the grains I’m eating.

And you don’t necessarily have to flip a switch right away. You can make small changes, like maybe not eating the whole loaf. Yeah.

I think diving into the research can definitely be motivating, but I think it really comes down to a mental game and the habits you create.

One of the books that I really recommend is from my friend Oonagh Duncan, called Healthy as Fuck. And it really dives into the habits you need to get lean, stay healthy, and kick ass at life.

Who doesn’t want that?

One of the things that Oonagh talks about in her book is the habit loop, and that is where you have a trigger, then that leads to a behavior, and then you get a reward from that behavior.

So an example of this might be you’re feeling a little stressed after work. You come home, have a glass of wine, or three and then you feel a little bit more relaxed. What Uno dives into is really identifying those triggers and seeing what causes that, and then seeing if you can find a better reward that will get you to the same place.

So maybe it’s a matter of you feel really stressed, you come home and you take a walk. Then you feel a little bit more relaxed or you drink a cup of tea. And I know that may not sound quite as exciting as drinking wine, but in the long run you end up feeling better and you are healthier and it leads to less calories obviously.

And just like Tom said in his interview, at first it’s work and then it becomes natural. It’s really difficult when we have this culture of overeating over-drinking, maybe not exercising as well, and peer pressure to go out and have fun. And that includes probably all of those things. The other thing that I think that is important is really identifying as a person who is healthy and is taking care of their health.

Because I think that when you do that, it becomes a no brainer to say no to some of the things that aren’t as healthy. And like I said, some of these things might be just about starting small, so maybe you don’t have that big chocolate cake after dinner, maybe you have just a square of chocolate and you think of a way to distract yourself.

And in Oongh’s book, she really does dive into a lot of the ways to get out of that mental loop and get into more healthy habits. And when you start practicing these things, it becomes easier and easier.

Outro: Hope that was helpful, and make sure you grab the free guide Top Tools for Late Starters on the website at latestartersclub.com and let’s turn dreaming into doing.