Our Habitat Choices Can Work for or Against Fatfighters

Well, last night sucked. I did fine with B and L, but D got the best of me. Nothing new. My fault. Why? I bought dessert. I bought a dessert that is tempting. It was there. And I ate it. 400 calories worth.

My mistake. It's interesting that I had an opportunity to backtrack, to NOT buy this dessert--when the clerk forgot to ring it up. But no, I bought it. And because I let it enter my habitat, it entered my body.

Anyway, I was over at Sparkpeople logging the dreaded calories of last night's mess, when I came across an article.

Here, a snippet:

The researchers investigated what set the weight-losers apart from the others, and published their findings in the October issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

Those who lost weight and kept it off were about three to four times more likely to exercise than those who were obese or overweight. They were also about 1.4 to 1.6 times more likely to spend time thinking about restraining their food intake, considering things like calories.

Those who lost weight had fewer televisions in their home and less high-fat food on hand. They also had more exercise equipment in their homes, the study authors noted.

"You have to pay attention to your home environment if you want to succeed," Phelan said. "Do you have TVs in every room? When you walk into your kitchen, do you see high-fat food or healthy food?"

Dr. David Katz, director of Yale University School of Medicine's Prevention Research Center, noted in the news release that the study's findings were "common sense" and "close to self-evident."

"If you want to choose better foods, keep better foods within reach. Don't just rely on willpower. If you want to be more active, create opportunities for exercise that are always within reach. Don't just rely on motivation," he said.

Emphasis mine.

No one is responsible for my home environment but me. Sure, I live with one of the finest and sweetest men on earth, but it's really me. I do most of the food shopping. I do all of the cooking. I know what's in the fridge, freezer, and pantry--hubby is blithely unaware of stuff like what's in the fridge. Amazing how men can do that.

So, today, my goal is to go through my living room and kitchen (where I spend most of my home-time when awake) and get rid of what's not beneficial and rearrange it so that I can see encouragement (low-cal cookbooks, exercise equipment) and can't see stuff I ought not (hubby's snacks, triggers). We only have one television (I know, we're so weird, right), but I spend more time on the 'puter (which is semi on the fritz, so I'll be getting a new one soon) than watching tv. I even watch tv shows, anime, and movies on the puter at times, so really, I need to sometimes just hit the off button and go exercise.

This is my habitat. I'm it's Empress. I need to get the empire in line.

And I need to stop bringing crap in here.

^^for some home gym funnies, visit this page.