Here’s how to change your eating habits in a new, surprising way

Sometimes the best hacks about how to change your eating habits come from the people around you. Here’s how to find the right trick for you.

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I think I’ve saved about a million calories since I learned one simple trick from a patient more than 25 years ago.

And my daughters – who, like me, both have a sweet tooth the size of Mount Everest – have probably saved hundreds of thousands of calories each using the same portion control hack. They learned it by watching me.

How to change your eating habits

and it works for exercise too!

Lots of times I’ve taken the long, meandering road out of bad eating habits and into good ones. I’ve tried this way and that way before figuring out what works for me. Other times, I look to people who are already doing what I want to do, and I simply copy them. Like that patient more than 25 years ago.

So what is this bit of brilliance that’s kept my girls and me from polishing off king-sized bags of M & M’s every night? It really is simple. We always eat M & M’s, chocolate chips, and other small candies from a pretty shot glass. It’s a perfect portion.

Psychologists call this type of copying “personality plagiarism” or “copy/paste prompts.” Both terms sound silly, but I LOVE the concept: Find something that someone else does well that also resonates with you and integrate it into your life. In the podcast No Stupid Questions, expert Angela Duckworth explained why she thinks this strategy works.

“When you copy out of somebody else’s life, you are more committed, yourself, to using it. You have a sense of agency and ownership, and you’re like, ‘I’ve decided to do this.‘”

In other words, looking to friends and even strangers for solutions to a common problem and choosing the steps to take is more effective than simply being told what to do by a friend, a healthcare professional, or a blogger. Instead of taking random advice about how to change your eating habits or following someone else’s prescription for you, look around, ask what works for others, and try out the best of the best.

What to do when you feel stuck

~Not sure how to get yourself to exercise regularly?

~Wish you ate more vegetables?

~Trying to stop snacking in the car?

Step 1 is to look around at people who do these things already. Do you have a neighbor who jogs every morning? Ask her what gets her outside every day and did she used to struggle with the exercise habit. Who do you know who eats lots of veggies? Some people at work? Your sister or friend? Certainly, there are lots of people who’ve changed their eating habits for the better over the years. I’ll bet most struggled too at first – maybe for a long time.

In step 2, imagine taking on some of these strategies as your own. And finally, in step 3, pick something and try it out. Yay, if your new behavior sticks. If not, keep looking for your solution.

What works for others

Watch the people around you. Get them talking about how they developed good habits. What tricks did they use to make the wanted behavior stick?

And add the following curated ideas to your list. I’ve asked readers, clients, and students in my digital courses what’s going well and why.

Break a bad habit

• One reader broke her 4:00 chip habit simply by not bringing them into the house anymore. “Actually, I don’t miss it,” she told me.
• The same person stopped boredom eating by taking walks outside.
• Another reader stopped snacking in the car by putting her groceries in the trunk. You can’t eat chips and cookies if you can’t reach them.
• A reader stopped his unhealthy takeout habit by keeping “emergency foods” in his office. He keeps packages of seasoned tuna, whole grain crackers, small tins of almonds, and other shelf-stable foods to eat whenever he doesn’t have a planned lunch.
• Marie added protein to her previously carb-heavy breakfast, so she’s no longer grabbing snacks before lunch. Protein helps with appetite control.

Manage portions

• My shot glass trick has served me well for a lot of years!
• Whenever we have baked goods in the house, I slice the cake or portion out the cookies and wrap them in individual serving sizes. They go right into the freezer.
• A student in Prediabetes Turnaround uses portion control plates. Each dish has a right-sized space for each type of food.
• A former patient with type 2 diabetes and a lover of greasy burgers stopped eating two sandwiches every day by carrying a piece of fresh fruit with him. One sandwich and a piece of fruit was as satisfying and much better for him than two burgers.

Eat better

• A former patient reined in her excessive dinners without giving up fast food. She simply made a list of the best options at four restaurants and ordered only from her personalized list.
• A reader told me she eats a better lunch now because  – even though she eats at home – she packs her lunch the night before. Guess who she learned that from? Me! I started that years ago when I was working on a book project. By the time I stopped for lunch, I was painfully hungry and grabbed whatever I could find – until I started packing my lunch the night before. Easy-peasy.

• My former client was so clever. She had trouble getting a nourishing and satisfying breakfast during the work week. She solved her 5-day problem with a single action. Every Monday she packed 5 days of breakfast foods and put them in the office fridge. As she went through her morning emails, she ate breakfast at her desk.
• This is from a reader: “Each week, I prepare a container of veggies. I get it out for lunch and then keep it on the kitchen counter most of the afternoon to snack on. I love crisp snaps peas, carrots, and celery. The crunch helps me avoid chips.” She’s doing two important things here. First, she’s prepping her snacks in advance, and then she keeps them front and center as a reminder.
• Another reader says she’s managing her blood sugar better at most meals by starting the meal with a salad or other dark greens. Research suggests she’s on to something. When we begin a meal with something filling and low calorie, we tend to eat fewer calories (and blood sugar-raising carbohydrates) overall.
• Donna, one of my students, keeps food healthy and interesting by regularly adding to her recipe collection and trying new recipes.

Build accountability

• A student in one of my digital courses records her dinner intake as a way to stay on track with her goals.
• Another student puts her exercise plans in her calendar and treats them like the important appointments they are.
• Marlene, a reader of my blog who despised keeping a tedious food record and swore she’d never write down her food intake again, was upset with how much added sugar she’d been eating. She simplified her task and focused only on what mattered right then. She recorded added sugars only. “This led me to be more aware and eat more healthy foods overall. I feel so much better that I’ve started walking on my treadmill, doing some yoga, and meditating with Smiling Mind.” (By the way, the Smiling Mind app is the one that first hooked me on meditation. I can’t help but smile when the guide says in his Australian accent that I should go on my way with a smile on my mind. Isn’t that a lovely thought?)
• Kay built accountability around a diabetes prevention course in which she learns about healthy eating habits and how others in her class cope. She also gets a bunch more copy/paste prompts from the other students. And she told me her A1C has dropped from 6.6% (almost into the type 2 diabetes range) all the way to 5.6%, which is below the prediabetes range! Yay Kay!!

Keep moving

• When I worked in an office on the third floor, I made it a rule to always take the stairs (unless I had too much to carry). That may not sound like a lot of steps, but I worked there for 8 years. That adds up to miles of steps!
• A former client built her exercise routine when she signed up for water aerobics. The schedule, fun, and cost all boosted her motivation.

• One former patient fixed her exercise problem by going to bed on time. Before she did that, she hit the snooze button so many times she missed her exercise class.
• A student in one of my online classes gets a daily walk in by scheduling it around his meetings.
• I catch up with a dear friend about 4 states away when we take a walk and talk – fun, meaningful, and sweaty.

Look around you. I’m sure plenty of folks have figured out your struggle, and some of them will offer valuable suggestions.

So what resonates with you? Find it and go for it!
Struggling with your eating habits, you might be making 1 of these super common mistakes.

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