Thanks to a few notable TV health personalities, many well-intentioned people have started to buy a lot more salmon and tuna. These fish are touted as good sources of protein and Omega 3 fatty acids, but  unfortunately salmon is one of the worst things you could eat. But more on that later …

Although most of us realize that fish is nutritionally good for us, it is also becoming more widely known that our fish stocks are in trouble and levels of mercury found in some fish can be toxic. We need to be more mindful of the fish that we choose to eat  Taras Grescoe, author of a book that I recommend called Bottomfeeder, outlines a few helpful guidelines to follow when buying seafood:

1. When you are far from the seashore, as we are here in Ottawa, cheap seafood is suspect seafood.  It was probably farmed, and may have gone through several cycles of freezing and thawing before arriving on your table.
2. Avoid fish that has traveled far.  The more fuel used to ship it, the less inclined you should be to buy it.
3. Avoid long-lived predator fish (sharks, swordfish, Chilean sea bass, tuna). Because they are at the top of the food chain, these fish tend to contain the highest levels of mercury.
4. Avoid farmed shrimp, tuna, salmon and other species that are fattened with other fish; they tend to have higher levels of dioxins and other persistent organic pollutants. Instead, favour tilapia, carp, catfish, and other species that are fed vegetable, rather than animal, protein.
5. If you have a choice, choose organically farmed salmon, cod and trout; stocking densities are lower and they tend to be treated with fewer chemicals.
6. Opt for seafood at the lower end of the food chain, from mackerel down to oysters.  Bottom feeding is better for your health, and the health of the oceans.

The fishing methods to look for (and if it is not indicated on the packaging, assume the worst) include:

• Hook and Line
• Trolls (not to be confused with Trawls)
• Harpoons and scuba
• Purse Seines
• Pots and Traps

Avoid eating fish that have been caught with any of these methods:

• Midwater trawls. These tend to be the worst in terms of bycatch and damage to the environment but the midwater trawl is the best of the worst because it does not rake the ocean floor.
• Longlines. Bottom longlines are the best of the worst because they are much shorter and have a lower impact on sharks, turtles other mammals and little effect on birds.
• Gill nets. These can tangle just about anything, so rates of bycatch tend to be high.
• Dredges. Industrial vessels hauling large dredges, which comb the sea bottom for shellfish, have damaged fragile habitat for fish, probably permanently, in many oceans.

Absolutely never buy fish that has been caught with drift nets or ghost nets, dynamite & cyanide and bottom trawlers.

The Lists

Grescoe conveniently has a comprehensive list at the back of his book of the fish to eat always, sometimes/depends and never. Following are “Never” and “Always” lists. Please refer to his book for the sometimes/depends list and a wealth of eye opening, thought-provoking, and (for me) life-changing information.

No, never eat these fish

Bluefin tuna. Often called toro in Japanese restaurants, it is severely overfished and listed as critically endangered by the IUCN.  “Farmed” bluefin are actually juvenile tuna taken from the wild before they can reproduce; they are fattened with smaller fish.

Cod, Atlantic. Most cod stocks in the western Atlantic have collapsed and show no sign of recovery.  The Canadian government has declared the northern cod an endangered species and the cod of Georges Bank and the Gulf of Maine are considered a critical management concern.  Some frozen cod in North American supermarkets comes from the Barents Sea North of Scandanavia, where extensive  illegal fishing occurs.  An alternative is expensive organic farmed cod, currently being raised by companies in Scandinavia and Scotland.  Fished by pirate vessels.

Halibut, Atlantic. Atlantic halibut, a deepwater flatfish that can weigh up to seven hundred pounds, has been fished to the brink by trawls.  Stocks off the U.S. coast in the Gulf of St.Lawrence have collapsed, and halibut are considered endangered by the IUCN.

Chilean sea bass.  Also known as Patagonian toothfish, this long-lived deep-sea fish is subject to extensive pirate fishing.  Only one fishery has been certified by the Marine Stewardship Council; unless you know (and you  are unlikely to) that your Chilean sea bass comes from the south Georgia winter longline fishery in the Atlantic, avoid it.

Grouper.  grouper are overfished west of Florida and in Gulf of Mexico, where three quarters of the U.S. catch comes from (often mislabeled in Florida as Hake or Basa).  These long-lived reef predators, of which there are eighty-five known species, are especially vulnerable to overfishing, and toxins tend to accumulate in their flesh.  Grouper from the northwestern Hawaiian islands are sustainably fished. 

Monkfish. Heavily overfished, with bottom-destroying trawls, off the U.S. coast.  Small grill-net fisheries, somewhat less harmful to the sea bottom exist in Canada and New Jersey.  Also sold as angelfish and goosefish.

Ornage Roughy. These deep-sea fish, which can live up to 150 years, are being heavily overfished by highseas bottom-trawlers, which destroy fragile, slow-to-recover seamounts.    Listed as threatened by the Australian government in 2006.

Shark, Dogfish. Sharks are undergoing catastrophic population crashes worldwide to supply the Asian shark fin soup market.  Sharks produce few young, and large coastal species are slow-going and late to mature.

Skate. Like sharks, skates produce few young and are overfished.

Sole, Atlantic. Stocks of flounder, plaice, sole, and other flatfishes, which are fished on the Atlantic seafloor using trawls, are all in rough shape.  Flat fish from the Pacific are not overfished.

Tilefish. Although some stocks of tilefish are overfished, the main reason to avoid them is their extraordinarily high levels of mercury.  A single six-ounce serving of Gulf of Mexico tilefish will give you 520% of your weekly limit of mercury.

Absolutely, always eat these fish

Artic char &  barramundi. Both species are farmed in land-based closed containment systems that don’t pollute the environment; barramundi is very high in omega 3′s.

Halibut, Pacific. Stocks are currently at a thirty-year high, and the bottom longline fishery in Alaska is Marine Stewardship Council-certified.  An excellent alaternative to overfished Atlantic Halibut.

Herring. Now mostly fished with midwater trawls, Atlantic herring stocks are in good shape.  High in Omega 3′s, low in toxins.  Also known as kippers, rollmops and Solomon gundy.

Jellyfish. Eat them when you can find them; you’ll be doing the world a favour.

Mackerel. Fast maturing and prolific spawners, these tasty oily lfeshed fish are becoming more popular with chefs.  Choose Spanish and Atlantic over Gulf of Mexico, which tends to contain mercury.

Mullet. Common off Florida and Louisiana, striped mullet is fished with small nets, with little bycatch.

Oysters, mussels. All but 5% of the world’s oysters are farmed.  Mussels and oysters clean the oceans and reduce the size of dead zones, and are farmed without chemicals.

Pickerel. These are also known as walleye.  Stocks of this white-fleshed freshwater fish are currently in good shape.

Pollock. Caught with mid-water trawls in the Bering Sea, the U.S. fishery is MSC-certified.  Pollock is also sold as imitation crabmeat and goes into fast-food fish sandwiches and many kinds of fish sticks.

Sablefish. Also sold as black cod (not to be mistaken for illegally fished “black cod” from the Atlantic), this buttery-fleshed Pacific species is sustainably fished with bottom longlines and has been certified by the MSC.  It is now being farmed.

Sardines. Abundant plankton-eating schooling fish, sardines are sustainably fished and full of omega 3′s.  Canned or grilled, they make excellent eating.

Squid. Squid caught with trawls and hook-and-line, are not overfished, though their abundance can change with ocean conditions.  For now, don’t worry too much about ordering Calamari.

Trout. Rainbow trout in North America is almost inevitably farmed, mostly in Idaho.    Like salmon, it is a carnivorous fish, but since it is raised in inland ponds, the environmental impact of farming it is low.

Whitting, blue. Jump at any chance you get to eat these fish, which are now wastefully ground into fish meal.  Other edible forage fish include blue whiting, capelin, anchoveta and sand lance; they are all low in contaminants, and tend to be excellent battered and fried.

About salmon

So let’s talk about Salmon. On August 3, 2012, I drove by Produce Depot on Carling Avenue and saw a big sign advertising Salmon Fillets 5.99/lb  from Chile and I knew that these salmon were farmed and that is something I will never consume. Here’s why:

• In 1995 the European companies (globally, three players control this $320 million-a-year industry) went to Chile to expand their salmon farms because of Chile’s long temperate-water coastline, lax environmental regulations and workers who would accept $33 for a 48-hour workweek. The country had no wild salmon of its own (farmed fish wreak havoc on wild, native species).
• Farmed fish is the aquatic equivalent of factory farmed chicken in battery cages with similar issues of disease and pollution in addition to driving wild species almost to extinction.
• Malachite green, a toxic fungicide used in the process of growing a salmon, was banned in Canada in 1992 but is still widely used on farmed fish in Chile and China.
• Feed manufacturers are adding more vegetable oil to pellets (the food fed to farmed salmon), which makes the health benefits of salmon evaporate.  Because there is less fish oil in their diet, farmed salmon typically have much lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids than wild salmon.

All information in this article was taken from the book Bottomfeeder by Taras Grescoe and I would highly recommend adding it to your library. The lists in the back of the book are invaluable. I have copied them and refer to them when eating out and they are with me whenever I travel.

A final word of caution

I think reading labels is absolutely mandatory when food shopping. Unfortunately,  in a cross-country survey of American supermarkets, Consumer Reports found that 56% of salmon fillets were labeled as wild-caught when they were in fact farmed.

What, then, do we do as consumers?  Look for labels approved by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or alternatively think of fish as a very special treat to be enjoyed when you are close to the seaside and you can buy it fresh.   But there are a few websites that can help: www.seachoice.org, msc.org, fishbase.org. This website: gotmercury.org is a simple calculator to determine the amount of mercury you are getting from your seafood.

Make it a new habit! Before you go shopping, check out one of these websites to see which fish are the best fish to eat.

I get all kinds of reactions when I tell people that these are my typical breakfasts. I usually add a boiled egg to these breakfasts to increase my protein.   If you want to lose weight you need to change the way you think about the first meal of the day.  Leave the starchy carbs behind and embrace vegetables!

Lentil Chili

• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 cup each diced onions, diced celery, diced bell peppers and diced carrots
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp chili powder
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can cooked lentils, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup unsweetened pineapple juice (I have never used this ingredient so I think it is optional)
• 1/4 cup chili sauce (I use my homemade BBQ relish)
• 1 tbsp brown sugar
• 1/4 cup fresh, chopped cilantro (optional)

1. Heat olive oil in large pot over medium heat.  Add onions, celery, bell  pepper, carrots and garlic.  Cook and stir for 5 minutes, until vegetables begin to soften.
2. Add chili powder, cumin, oregano and cinnamon.  Cook and stir for 1 more minute.  Add all remaining ingredients, except the cilantro.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low.  Cover and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Stir in cilantro.    Remove from heat.  Ladle into serving bowls and top with a dollop of sour cream if desired.

Autumn Vegetable Soup

This is a perfect soup for our stored seasonal vegetables; carrots, cabbage and onions.  We froze bell peppers so we have plenty of those too.

• 1/2 cup onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup each cabbage, carrots, bell pepper
• 1/2 tsp each salt, dried basil and dried oregano
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 2 cups organic vegetable broth
• 1 cup tomato juice (or canned tomatoes)
• 3/4 cup cooked beans (I prefer black beans)
• 1 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• 1 tbsp fresh parsley

1. In soup pot saute onion in 1 tbsp olive oil over medium heat until soft.  Add garlic and saute 1 minute.
2. Add and saute the cabbage, carrots, bell pepper with the salt, basil, oregano and pepper.  Turn heat down to low, cover pot and let cook about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
3. Add broth, tomato juice, beans and vinegar and bring to a gentle boil and simmer about 15 minutes.
4. Add tomatoes and parsley, simmer another few minutes.

Spicy Black Bean Soup

• 1/2 tsp olive oil
• 1 cup each chopped onion, red bell pepper and carrots
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 3 cups organic beef broth
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 2 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 tbsp chopped, fresh cilantro
• 1 tbsp lemon juice and brown sugar
• 2 tsp dried oregano
• 1 tsp each chili powder, ground cumin and Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 tsp black pepper

1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat.  Add onions, red pepper, carrots and garlic.  Cook and stir for 5 minutes, until vegetables begin to soften.  Add all remaining ingredients.  Bring to a  boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
2. Blend with an immersion blender until smooth.  Garnish with chopped cilantro if desired.

Lentil & Walnut Stuffed Mushrooms

• 2 portabello mushrooms, remove, clean and dice stems
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1/2 sweet red pepper
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 8 oz baby spinach leaves, chopped or torn (This is not in season so I omit this ingredient)
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped
• 1/4 cup walnut pieces
• 1/2 – 3/4 cup lentils, cooked
• 1/4 cup goat or feta cheese, optional

1. Heat saucepan over high heat, add oil.  Reduce heat to medium and saute onions and red pepper until onions are translucent.
2. Add mushroom stems, garlic and thyme and continue cooking until fragrant, 3-5 minutes.
3. Stir in spinach and cook until wilted.
4. Add sundried tomatoes, walnuts and lentils.  Stir well to combine, remove from heat and season to taste.
5. Place portabellos on baking sheet, gill side up, drizzle with a spicy olive oil and white balsamic vinegar, then spoon mixture into each cap.  Optional; top with feta or goat’s milk cheese.
6. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.

Willpower

Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy F. Baumeister and John Tierney, is another absolutely fascinating book. Not surprisingly, a whole chapter is devoted to weight loss, but we will get to that later in this article.

My first ah-ah moment reading this book was learning that willpower is a finite resource and it becomes depleted as we use it. The second ah-ah moment, and frankly shocking realization, was finding out all the ways that we deplete our willpower. I’ll bet that some of them will surprise you:

• controlling our thoughts (decision making, even hypothetical decisions deplete willpower, fretting about unfinished business or tasks)
• controlling our emotions (suppressing emotions, forcing yourself to do something you really don’t want to do)
• controlling our impulses (dealing with frustrating traffic, resisting tempting foods, resisting the urge to tell someone off, putting up with pouting kids or temper tantrums, not getting enough sleep, chronic pain). And, if you struggle with temptation and then give in anyway, your willpower will still be depleted because you struggled, and giving in does not replenish the willpower!
• performance control (focusing on a task at hand, managing time)

You might be thinking: “Wow! I’m scr—ed! I must be depleted all the time.” Well, many of you probably are! But, there are many ways to combat what the authors call ego-depletion or decision fatigue.

Decision-making depletes willpower, and once your willpower is depleted you are less able to make decisions. To add insult to injury, when your willpower is depleted your cravings will feel more intense. This is a big problem for people dealing with addictions and withdrawal because ego-depletion creates a double whammy: willpower is low and cravings are more intense.  

Glucose & Self Control

Willpower and self control go hand in hand. Research has shown time and time again that there is a link between glucose and self-control. No glucose = No self control. Your body uses glucose for self control and naturally craves sweet foods to replenish that glucose. BUT before you reach for the sweets: high-protein, low-sugar foods work just as well, only a little more slowly.

To maintain steady self control, you are better off eating foods that have a low glycemic index. Interestingly, when you are sick more glucose is diverted to the immune system. When women are menstruating, more glucose is diverted to the reproductive system. Both of these situations deplete willpower, leading to less self control, which is why some women crave more sweets and eat more in general during their periods.

REST RESTORES THE BODY’S NEEDS FOR GLUCOSE! So instead of trying to resist temptation in these situations, we are better off getting more sleep.

Self Control

The authors spend several pages talking about setting goals and effective strategies for “getting things done.” As pointed out earlier, focusing on tasks, managing time, and trying to get things done all require self control. The book outlines two things that are essential for self control:

1. Setting goals
2. Monitoring behaviour (self monitoring)

Setting Goals

When it comes to self control, research has shown that monthly goals are more effective than daily goals. This is because daily goals take more time and are less flexible. For instance, I aim to do two HIT (high intensity training) workouts each week, usually on Monday and Wednesday, but as long as I do two each week I have been successful and I have met my goal. This approach allows for obstacles: if something comes up on Monday then I can easily shift the workouts to Tuesday and Thursday (Or Tuesday and Friday or Wednesday and Saturday or Thursday and Saturday … you get my point).

The authors recommend “bright lines”, which they define as clear, simple and unambiguous rules/goals. For example, “I am going to start doing more cardio” is NOT a bright line. “I am going to do two HIT workouts each week” is a bright line: I know exactly what I need to do.

Be careful when setting goals for future behaviour. Deciding to do more workouts is easy on Sunday evening when are sitting in front of the TV, but it’s a different story when you have to wake up at 5:45 am on Monday to get to the gym. You need to have a plan and you need to write down the step-by-step actions to get there.

Writing Down the Next Action Step

One method of helping people to set goals and accomplish those goals (this includes your “to-do” list and being able to check those things of that list) is outlined in David Allen’s book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. It turns out that writing things down–specifically writing down the actions or steps that you will take to accomplish your plan–dramatically improve the likelihood of making it happen. This means writing down the precise next action you need to do to get that thing done.

For example, a client of mine has set herself a goal of eating less meat (the long-term goal is fat loss), and by default eating more vegetables. She decided to do Meatless Mondays (this is a bright line). Let’s look at all the steps involved in this goal. She will need to determine:

• what is she going to eat for each meal (plan ahead!)
• what recipe is she going to use?
• what ingredients does she have in the house?
• what ingredients does she need?
• if she needs ingredients, when will she go shopping?
• when will she prepare the meal? the day before or the day of?

What is her next action step? First, she needs to decide on a time and day to plan her meals–such as Sunday at 8:00 am (it needs to be early on Sunday because if she has to shop for ingredients the stores have to be open). So, she needs to write down “Sunday 8:00 am: plan meatless meals for Monday. If she consistently does this it will become a habit, and habits conserve willpower!

When we write something down on our to-do list, or set ourselves a goal, we often forget all the little steps required to meet that goal. We become disappointed with ourselves or get frustrated and wonder why we procrastinate or don’t get things done. But when we look at it this way and see that one goal requires a lot of little steps is it any wonder that we struggle?

Once you have dissected your goal and looked at ALL the steps involved to get there, then you can decide if the goal is truly realistic. If it isn’t then reduce it to something that is more achievable (more on that in my next article, which will review the book, Switch).  It may not surprise you, reading what you have just read, that research tells us that it is more effective to focus on one goal at a time. Setting numerous goals (like a new years resolution list) and expecting to achieve them is a recipe for disappointment. Focus on one goal and write down the next action step.

Self-Monitoring

One study sought to answer the question, When monitoring behaviour, is it more effective to focus on how far you have come or how much remains to do?

Research shows that for contentment it pays to look at how far you have come (rewarding small wins as per The Power of Habit)…BUT, to stoke motivation and ambition, focusing on the road ahead is the way to go.

There are numerous ways to help stoke motivation. One is simply to make it public: post your intention on Facebook or tell friends and loved ones. We tend to care more about what other people know about us than what we know about ourselves. For example, when walkers were given a pedometer to motivate them to move more and get them to monitor their behaviour, the pedometer proved effective but it was even more effective when they shared each day’s tally with other people. You are more likely to monitor your own behaviour when you know other people are watching.

Another method to stoke motivation is pre-commitment. This is locking yourself into a virtuous path on which it is impossible or unacceptable to leave that path. I workout regularly–it is part of my life, it is not an option. I consider it part of who I am and what I believe in (more about this in the last book I will write about, Why We Do What We Do). Journals are a very effective form of self monitoring; research shows this time and time again. The authors of Willpower refer to research that shows it is better to weigh ourselves everyday–frequent monitoring improves self control. People who weighed themselves everyday were much more successful at keeping their weight from creeping up. They also did not show signs of disillusion or other distress from their daily confrontation with the scale.

Self-Control and Weight Loss

Willpower outlines three rules to follow to lose weight:

1. NEVER go on a diet
2. NEVER vow to give up a food
3. whether you are judging yourself or judging others, NEVER equate being overweight with having weak willpower

If you go on a diet, whether or not you have good self control, the odds are that you will not lose weight permanently. Dieting does not work because of our biology: when we drastically reduce calories, our bodies’ natural reaction is to hold on to every fat cell for survival. EACH SUCCESSIVE DIET BECOMES LESS EFFECTIVE.

Please read that statement carefully and absorb it. It means that repeat dieters will find it harder and harder to lose weight. Instead of going for quick and repeated weight loss, use your self control to make GRADUAL changes that will produce lasting effects, like building good habits.

What do you need for self control?

1. set a goal (a realistic goal, and write down the next action step)
2. monitor yourself (keep a journal, make it public, precommit)
3. strengthen your willpower (exercise it by practicing things such as not swearing, not using abbreviations, etc.)

WHEN YOU HATE WHAT YOU SEE IN THE MIRROR, YOU NEED SELF CONTROL TO NOT START A CRASH DIET!

The Dangers of Dieting

You may have heard of the “what the hell effect”–this is when dieters for some reason go over their daily caloric target and then they consider the rest of the day blown so they say to themselves “well, I might as well enjoy myself!” The resulting binge often causes greater weight gain than the original lapse. Once a dieter decides to “enjoy themselves” they stop self monitoring (they probably won’t write down everything they ate during that binge day in their journal), a key to self control.

We are born with an innate gift for knowing when and how much to eat. Hunger pangs tell us when to eat and the lack of them tell us when to stop. Do you eat according to a clock or your hunger pangs? Obese people are more likely to go on diets, and diets cause them to eat according to external cues (clock) instead of internal cues (hunger pangs). Dieting means being hungry a lot of the time. Dieting means learning not to eat when you are hungry. You are teaching yourself to ignore internal cues! You try to ignore the start eating signal but the start-stop signals are intertwined, so you typically lose touch with the stop eating signal as well, particularly if the diet tells you exactly how much to eat.

The nutritional Catch-22 is this: in order to eat, a dieter needs willpower and in order to have willpower a dieter needs to eat!

Choose foods low on the glycemic index–your body knows that sugar is the fast and easy way to get an infusion of energy rich glucose, but keep the sweets out of sight (preferably out of the house–don’t waste willpower trying to resist them!). You can also try the postponed pleasure ploy. It is less stressful on the mind (conserve willpower) to say that you’ll have something later rather than never. Telling yourself you can have that sweet treat later operates in the mind a little like having it now: it satisfies cravings to some degree and can be more effective at suppressing the appetite than actually having the treat.

Eating and dieting can be affected by things that seemingly have no connection to them.  Remember at the beginning of this article all those things that deplete willpower? Controlling thoughts, controlling emotions, impulse control, performance control, chronic pain, being tired…if you are dealing with a lot of those on a daily basis, perhaps it is not a good time to add dieting to that list. Instead, getting sufficient rest needs to be priority Number One, as rest is the body’s only way of replenishing glucose and remember you need glucose for willpower.

Strengthening Willpower & the Power of Habits

Pre-commiment can turn into something very valuable and permanent: a HABIT!!! Habits are a relatively automatic mental process requiring little to no further willpower. Habits are your best ally in achieving goals, because HABITS CONSERVE WILLPOWER.

There are exercises you can do to strengthen self control (willpower). Participants in studies showed that if they “exercised ” their self control by practicing something like good posture, their self control improved in other areas of their lives, such as procrastinating less, sticking to fitness routines, and following budgets. Exercising self control in one area seems to improve multiple areas of life. As willpower got stronger it was less readily depleted. 

Other exercises that you can use to “strengthen” willpower include not swearing and not using abbreviations.

• self control turned out to be most effective when people used it to establish good habits and break bad habits
• use your self control to form daily habits
• if a task is more automatic and requires less effort (a habit) then the task was then do-able even when willpower was already weakened.

Self control will be most effective if you take good basic care of your body, starting with sleep and diet.

One of the most common reasons for self control problems is overconfidence in willpower, but as we have seen, willpower is easily depleted by numerous things, and we have only a finite amount of it.

I have fallen in love with reading and I could not be happier. My favourite topic is human behaviour–I really enjoy learning why I do the things I do. Four books in particular have opened my eyes: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, Willpower by Roy F. Baumeister & John Tierney, Switch by Chip and Dan Heath and Why We Do What We Do by Edward L. Deci.

I want to share some of this knowledge with you and was hoping to summarize all four books in one newsletter, but there is just too much good information! So I will write one article each month for the next four months, focusing on each of these books in turn.

The Power of Habit

From Charles Duhigg’s book I learned that a habit is processed in my brain as a three-step loop:

1. first there is a CUE: a trigger that tells the brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use (the cue not only triggers a routine but also the craving for the reward to come)
2. then there is the ROUTINE which can be physical, mental or emotional
3. the REWARD helps the brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future (“You need to crave and anticipate the reward so choose it wisely, make it powerful.  Only when your brain starts expecting the reward will it become automatic.”)

Some key points from Power of Habit include:

• habits never really disappear–you cannot extinguish a bad habit but you can change it
• to change a habit you have to believe that you can change it
• belief happens whenever people come together to help one another change, so your odds go up dramatically when you commit to changing as part of a group
• acknowledge and reward small wins, as they have a snowball effect: once one is accomplished another is more likely to follow
• when we keep the same cue and the same reward it is much easier to insert a new routine and thus change a habit
• people are most successful when they plan for the obstacles ahead of time

So let’s say your goal is to get up early and exercise first thing in the morning. What are you going to do when you wake up and don’t want to get out of bed? Write down your plan of action: I will sit up, then I will put my feet on the floor and stand up, then I will put on my workout gear and leave the bedroom. It is important to write down your plan, do not just run through it in your head. Write it down!

• 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.

The Hard Work

1. Identify the routine. The routine is the behaviour you want to change.
2. Experiment with rewards. Rewards are powerful because they satisfy cravings but we are often not conscious of the cravings that drive our behaviours.
3. Isolate the cue. It is hard to identify the cues that trigger our habits because there is too much information, so ask yourself these questions; where are you? what time is it? what is your emotional state? who else is around? what action preceded the urge?

To guide you through these steps let’s look at the author’s example. He had a cookie-in-the-afternoon habit that he wanted to change. Every afternoon he would get up from his desk, wander down to the cafeteria, buy a cookie and, while chatting with colleagues around the cash register, eat the cookie causing him to gain weight over time, as it was a daily habit.

1. What is the cue for this routine? Hunger? Boredom? Low blood sugar? Need a break?
2. What is the reward? The cookie? The change of scenery? Temporary distraction? Socializing with colleagues? A burst of energy from the sugar?

He had to experiment with the rewards, too. Rewards are powerful because they satisfy cravings. What you have to do is adjust your routine so it delivers a different reward. In this example he tried a few things:

• Instead of walking to the cafeteria he went for a walk outside then back to his desk without eating anything.
• Next time he tried going to the cafeteria, buying a doughnut/candy bar and eating it at his desk.
• Then he tried going to the cafeteria buying an apple and ate it while chatting to friends.
• He could also have tried walking over to a colleagues desk and visiting for a few minutes before returning to his desk.

What he chose to do instead of buying the cookie was not important; the point was to try different hypotheses to determine which craving was  driving his routine. Was he craving the cookie? Was he craving the break from work? If it was the cookie, was he actually hungry? (in which case the apple should have worked). Or was it the burst of energy from the cookie? (in which case a coffee might have done the trick). Or was he wandering up to the cafeteria as an excuse to socialize? (if so, going to visit a friend at their desk would work just as well).

To help you see a pattern, after each “experiment” try jotting down on a piece of paper the first three things that pop into your head. They can be emotions, random thoughts, reflections on how you are feeling or just three words that popped into your head. Then set an alarm for 15 minutes, and when it goes off ask yourself: “do I still feel the urge for the cookie?”

Writing down the three things is important because it gives you a moment of awareness and allows for better recall of what you were thinking at that moment. The 15-minute alarm will help you determine the reward you are craving. If 15 minutes after eating the  doughnut he still felt the urge to get up and go to the cafeteria, then the habit was not motivated by the sugar craving. If after visiting a friend at his desk he still wanted the cookie, then the need to socialize was not driving his behaviour. And so on.

What was his cue? To isolate the cue he asked himself:

1. Where was he? Sitting at his desk, this was the same each day.
2. What time was it? The times varied between 3pm and 4pm each day.
3. What was his emotional state? His emotions varied and included bored, happy, tired and excited about project he was working on.
4. Who else was around? This varied as well, no one and colleagues around.
5. What action preceded the urge? Again this varied, answered an email, made a photocopy, sat down to a meeting.

Three days in to the experiment, the author knew which cue was triggering his habit: he felt an urge to get a snack at a certain time of day. He had already figured out from step 2 (experiment with rewards) that it was not hunger driving his behaviour. The reward he was seeking was a temporary distraction, and the habit was triggered between 3pm and 4pm.

Have a Plan

The author learned that his cue was roughly 3:30pm, his routine was going to the cafeteria, buying a cookie and chatting with colleagues, his craving was a moment of distraction and the opportunity to socialize.

He wrote down his plan, he set an alarm to go off at 3:30pm every day. At that time, he would walk over to a colleague’s desk and chat for 10 minutes. His reward was the same, the moment of distraction and the opportunity to socialize.

My Routine

I started thinking about eating dessert after supper. I have grown up with that habit, it was so automatic that I never gave it much thought. I wanted to understand my habit loop, because eating dessert after supper had become eating dessert after lunch and sometimes after breakfast as well! I was eating too many sweets each day. 

So I’m following Duhigg’s process and it may take a few days to figure it out, but right now I think my cue may be eating a meal: as soon as I start to eat a meal, I begin to crave (remember cravings drive habits) the dessert that will follow. I understand now why my after dinner dessert has turned into an after meal dessert: as soon as I sit down to eat my habit loop starts, whether it is breakfast lunch or dinner! 

Understanding habits makes them easier to control. The routine is the behaviour you want to change, so for me, eating dessert after a meal is my routine. My reward is the satisfaction of eating something sweet, I also think that for me eating dessert finishes the meal, a meal without dessert is incomplete.

My Plan

Duhigg emphasizes the importance of having a plan and writing it down. My plan of action includes having alternatives for my reward other than a high-calorie dessert (which for me often was a whole chocolate bar = 500 calories!)

• a low calorie sweet (cinnamon mints that are 3 calories each and I would allow myself several if needed)
• eating raw sunflower seeds or sliced cucumber with homemade salad dressing (which has honey in it so it does have some sweetness), cucumbers  and raw sunflower seeds are what I call a neutralizing food, they leave my palette neutral, not with a sweet or savoury taste in my mouth (when I eat sweets, the sweet taste left in my mouth makes me continue to crave more sweets)
• and finally my last alternative is to brush my teeth right away after the meal. Brushing my teeth is a powerful cue for me: I like the clean feeling in my mouth, and that feeling tells me to stop eating. I would combine this with a very effective willpower technique called delayed gratification, which is when you tell yourself you will have the treat later. So I will brush my teeth then tell myself I can have the treat in an hour if I still want it.

Habits and Health

Studies repeatedly show that people who successfully stick to a new exercise program do so  because they chose a specific CUE, such as working out as soon as they wake up (waking up is their cue) and a clear REWARD, such as a glass of wine that evening. Habitual exercisers said they exercised because it made them feel good–they grew to expect and CRAVE the endorphins and other neurochemicals that a workout provides; others said they craved the feeling of accomplishment when they finished a workout. Those self-rewards were enough to make exercise a habit. But be aware that a cue and and a reward on their own is not enough for a new habit to last–only when your brain starts expecting the reward will it become automatic. Pick your rewards carefully, make them powerful.

The research on dieting says that creating new food habits requires predetermined cues (having a plan and writing it down!) such as planning your meals in advance and simple rewards for dieters when they stick to their intentions. The reward has to be powerful–you have to crave it. I would caution against using food as a reward or if you do, make it a low calorie food.

Licensing is when you act as if one good deed gives you license to sin. This is not uncommon with people who work out. Studies have repeatedly shown that when people workout they give themselves permission to eat more because they have worked out. I realize I do this, but what I did not realize until now was how it played into my dessert-after-meal habit loop. It is important to eat a good healthy meal after a workout to promote muscle building. My craving for dessert would sometimes start as soon as I started my workout; after my workout I get to eat, when I eat I get dessert! (the dessert became my reward for working out).

See Your Habits, Change Your Life

The power of habits is quite shocking, and Charles Duhigg tells some fascinating stories/case studies where habits have had an unbelievable effect on people’s lives. For instance, a habit saved an Alzheimer’s patient from getting lost, it made a man kill his wife while he was asleep, habits make people mis-remember facts and become unreliable eyewitnesses. And did you know that Febreeze could not be sold successfully until the company learned how to use the habit loop to its advantage?  

I chuckled on my way home today as I drove down my street and saw many blue boxes and green bins out. It is Friday after all (my neighbourhood collection day) but it was a long week-end so collection is delayed one day. Habits are all around us! See if you can start spotting them in your life. Use habits to your advantage and it can change your life.