How Habit Stacking Can Finally Change Your Relationship With Food

Your relationship with food is one of the most important relationships you’ll ever form. It can literally change your life. It begins to form before you have any control over it — when you’re a young child. The foods that you regularly consume and have access to become the foods that we gravitate toward as we get older. The foundation that’s built during our formative years is solid. It’s hard to shake. It is a major component of who you are. And that relationship can trend toward the “healthy” end of the spectrum or it can go in the other direction.

Take a minute to think about some of the foods you enjoyed as a child. Are they still favorites now that you’re an adult. And even beyond just taste preference, unless you push yourself to expand your palate, you’ll likely stick with a lot of the same foods as a matter of routine or a desire not to step into the unknown.

As you get older and gain control over the foods that we eat, understanding this relationship, nurturing it, and shifting it (if necessary) becomes important. If you don’t feel as goods as you want to feel or you’d like to see some changes in the way you look, looking at your relationship with food is the place to start. As you begin to really look into this relationship, you’ll quickly realize is that your habits are central to this examination. In order to get to where you want to be, many habits might need to be reengineered or even recreated. That’s where' habit stacking comes into play.

You don’t have to do it all at once in one fell swoop. That’s stressful, overwhelming, and for many leads to the opposite of success. Instead, consider habit stacking. I’m a big proponent of it, it’s what I recommend to my clients and I do this myself.

What is habit stacking?

Habit stacking is exactly what it sounds like. It’s putting one habit on top of another. It sounds simple, right? It is, but with a caveat. In order to make it work in practice, the habits have to actually stick. You can’t pick a habit 1, do it for a few weeks, add habit 2, then stop doing habit 1. That messes up your stack of habits. In order for habit stacking to actually work, you have to maintain your habits (as long as they serve you and your goals). And maintaining new habits takes WORK.

That work is the actual beauty of this process. Through the work it takes to create and maintain a new habit, you actually begin to change the relationships you had with food that were pulling you in the opposite direction that you wanted to go. And though we’re talking about food here, this applies to all areas of your life.

Let’s look at a habit stacking example.

Say for instance you want to do a complete overhaul of your eating habits. You recognize that the way you’re eating is making you sick, plain and simple. On top of that, you’re not loving what you see in the mirror. It’s time to make a change. Instead of trying to switch up everything you’ve done over the course of the last 15 years, you decide to give habit stacking a try.

Habit 1 - Drink water with every meal

Up until now, water has been a last resort type of situation. You only drink it when absolutely necessary. You know the importance and value of drinking water, so you start there. You’re not working on anything else at this time. By choosing to drink water with each meal, you’ve eliminated the sweet tea or soda that you typically have with that meal. That’s major! You’re giving your body a break from sugar and empty calories. You might slip here and there, but with habit stacking, this is all you’re working on until you succeed in making this a habit.

How long will it take? That varies from person to person. It might take you a week, two weeks or maybe even a month. The point is you want to be sure that the habit is locked in before you move on to something else.

Habit 2 - Non-starchy vegetables with at least 2 meals a day

You’re consistently having water with each meal without slips, now it’s time to stack a new habit. You struggle with vegetables, so your next goal is to have vegetables with each meal. You get to pick your veggies, any non-starchy vegetables you love. You can have them with breakfast and dinner, lunch and dinner or even a snack and dinner. The choice is up to you, and if you have more, that’s just icing on the cake. This is a tough one because you often go all day without any vegetables. It will take time, but you follow the same steps you followed with the water. Keep repeating until it sticks. You’re also maintaining your water habit as you do this.

I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. If you give yourself time to make a habit stick before adding more to the mix, it becomes easier to actually tackle changing your eating habits on the whole.

Even though habit stacking makes the process simpler, it’s still a process that takes time. Give yourself grace and room to fail but pick yourself back up. Get a support system, a coach, a journal — whatever it takes to keep you going.

I’ve personally found habit stacking to be a journey of discovery, renewal and true insight into the things I do in my life that truly don’t serve me. You learn a lot about yourself on this road and what triggers you might have. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again — there’s so much beauty in learning about yourself. It’s not always pretty or fun, but it is worth it.

I’d love to hear about your process. Share in the comments, tag me on IG @jordanparkermeans or #dietdeconstructed, or shoot me an email at contact@dietdeconstructed.com.

Until the next time…