Addictions
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It’s the fourth of January 2009. I am hoping that everyone came into this year as the clock struck midnight on the last day of December 2008 with clearly defined goals about the way they want the year to turn out. Even if this isn’t exactly the case, maybe you just had one goal, aim or resolution that you wanted to achieve.
For many people they want to beat addictions around this time of the year. For me, it doesn’t matter what you are addicted to, it can still be called an addiction – cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, food, sex, people, places, work.
I use this definition of an addiction: If you are compelled to do something, but it DOES NOT take you towards you overall dream vision of yourself.
Of course, for this to be true, you need to have an overall dream of yourself first. To continue this example I am going to discuss my own addictions and New Years Resolutions – hopefully you’ll see I’m a real person too, and The Art of Living Healthy isn’t always simple.
My overall dream of myself is to be as healthy as I possibly can, with fitness, strength and optimum sporting performance to boot. I want to be free of emotional ups-and-downs, have good mental clarity and loving relationships with all those around me. I also want to have good work-life balance and minimise the stress in my life.
Sounds like heaven doesn’t it?
Now, this dream doesn’t have to be your Resolution but just something in the back of your mind to help you to know where you are going. The next question is, what am I doing about it? So in December I took a good hard look at my life and noticed a few things, and saw that some of the actions I was taking in my everyday life were not taking me towards my overall dream of myself. In fact they were taking me further away! Not a sensible move!
From here it becomes reasonably simple – change your habits to serve your overall dream!
One example of a habit that was not serving me is that on occassions I would still eat gluten. I eat a great diet 95% of the time – some would call it perfect! However, I teach the 80/20 rule that you can still eat the occassional “treat” every now and then, and this is what I would do. Typically I’d go for all of the things I’d suggest to cut out: Wheat/Gluten, Sugar, Dairy.
I’d do this, might feel crappy for the day but then be back to myself right as rain the next day as long as I didn’t overdo it!
However, for as long as I have been doing this, I can honestly say that my health and fitness has not necessarily been progressing as fast as I would like it to. Then I saw a video presentation with JP Sears of the CHEK Institute, and he said that when you eat gluten it so damages and irritates the walls of the intestines that in order for the gut to start healing itself you need to be without gluten for 60 days – just for it to start healing! No gluten whatsoever! Not even any cheats!
I don’t believe there has been a 60 day period in my entire life where I was away from gluten (as a baby/child my nutrition was very poor) – I’d probably imagine I had gluten at a very young age!
So, this is my aim for 2009: 6 months being gluten free. I was addicted to eating gluten and I knew this because I was compelled to eat it and it wasn’t taking me to where I wanted to go. So I found where I wanted to go, decided why, and went there.
I suggest the same process for all addictions. If you notice something is not serving you, then take action and do something about it. I would recommend finding an alternative to the habit in case you find it particularly difficult as you may well do, but motivation is the key. Definite decisions about your future are most certainly the key!!! And do it NOW!!!
(My alternative to gluten is rice, just so you know!)
So if you have got this far into 2009 you are already doing quite well – it’s the 3 day hump that you have to get over and it is well known to be the hardest period of any addiction, so well done to get to the 4th January.
However if you started on the 1st and have already returned to your old ways, don’t panic!! Just start again, using the formula above, and give yourself an overall dream / motivation to carry on.
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Sounds great! Good luck with your plan. By the way, beware of rice as some is coated with Gluten. I have a blog that can help you find that which is not. Stop by http://www.glutenfreesimplicity.wordpress.com
Good luck.
William
Thank you so much for this information. It’s something I didn’t know but will definitely take into consideration.
[...] wrote in my most recent post that one of my health goals for 2009 is to go ‘gluten-free’ for at least six months, [...]