Last week, I listened to the audiobook for Jen Sincero’s new book Badass Habits: Cultivate the Awareness, Boundaries, And Daily Upgrades You Need To Make Them Stick. The book includes a 21 day program to establish a new badass habit (or break up with a sucky habit like smoking). I ordered my physical copy of Badass Habits before I had even finished the audiobook because I knew I would be flipping through the book constantly while following the program.

Before I could start the Badass Habits program, I had to pick my new badass habit. At first, I thought, I want to get into the habit of eating frozen grapes at night for dessert instead of ice cream. This seemed like something I could do that would help me lose weight.

Except the habit of eating frozen grapes while eliminating ice cream from my life went against everything I have learned from Noom. If I make ice cream forbidden, then I am going to crave it more. And if I delay my craving, the ice cream is going to seem extra rewarding when I finally eat it (because trust me, I will eventually eat it). Then I’ll crave ice cream even more for that dopamine hit… and so the vicious cycle goes.

I do not want to eliminate any foods from my life because that is not sustainable. So I thought some more until I hit upon the perfect habit: I want to meet my daily Noom calorie budget.

When I meet my daily calorie budget, I lose weight – easily. I do not feel deprived or like I am suffering. I am able to enjoy treats like ice cream, cake and pie, and I do not go around hangry all the time. I also do not feel stuffed or gross from eating too much. Noom’s daily calorie budget is very realistic and doable for me.

But for the past few months, I have rarely met my daily calorie goal. I have logged my foods through dinner and then went into mindless eating mode after dinner. I also had a tendency to eat 500+ calories of afternoon snacks and not log any of those calories. I was not being honest with myself about the amount of food I was eating, and I knew I was lying to myself, but I also felt angry when the numbers on the scale refused to budge, which activated all sorts of shame and guilt gremlins, which made me eat more ice cream to numb the guilt and shame…

Before reading Badass Habits, I was thinking that maybe I should just be happy with weighing about 200 pounds in my 5’5″ frame. I felt called to lose weight, but maybe I was just being superficial. Shouldn’t I just love myself completely the way I am? But Sincero writes:

This habit you’ve chosen is going to become your obsession, your teacher, your muse for self-actualization.

Badass Habits, pg. 114.

My yearning to lose weight is not something superficial. It’s my soul’s way of leading me toward self-actualization. For me, losing weight will not simply be about numbers on the scale. It’s much bigger than that. It’s about my relationship with the world. It’s about my relationship with myself. It’s about self-actualization.

And that is pretty badass.