16. Routines > Resolutions
Did you know that 80% of people will ditch their New Years resolutions by February? If you are looking to start any New Years resolutions for your family, consider routines instead! Not only will you have long-term success instead of short-term burnout, but you will also set your family up for routines that support your goals.
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IN THIS EPISODE
Practical steps to identify your routines
Why routines are better than resolutions
How to brainstorm for long-term success
LINKS
Join the Autism Nutrition Library
Follow @AutismDietitian on Instagram
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the Nourishing Autism Podcast where you take a deep dive into the research on autism and dietary changes, nutrition supplements, and lifestyle modifications. Every week, we break down nutrition topics and an easy-to-understand way for you to feel less overwhelmed and feel confident on your nutrition journey with autism.
Hello everyone! And welcome to the Nourishing Autism Podcast. I'm your host Brittyn Coleman, the autism dietitian. Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! I hope you've had a great holiday season, and are feeling excited and hopeful for the new year. I know that I am. As a dietitian I know just how common health-related new year's resolutions are. I've been there too!
And it's really common to put this immense pressure on ourselves. To all of a sudden, overnight, extremely restrict our diet and begin overexercising and just make these overly ambitious resolutions. And this usually lasts a few weeks until the burnout sets in and then you stopped doing it altogether. And even, in some cases, bend back the other way and reverse the progress you had just made. And I've also been there too.
And do you know that up to 80% of people ditch their new year's resolutions by February? So if this is you, I'd like to encourage you to think about the coming year a bit differently than before. And I want to think about prioritizing a routine, not a resolution. So what a routine has that a resolution often lacks is consistency, and longevity in a routine helps lay this groundwork for your goal that you work toward every single day. And this means that you're more likely to have long-term success rather than short term burnout. So instead of creating this overly ambitious resolution, we can still create goals, but how are we going to create those little steps in your daily routine to help you get there?
So think about your current routine. Is it helping you reach those goals? And if not, let's think back to how we can adjust your current routine in order to meet and reach those goals. And it is important for you to note that it generally takes four to six weeks to start a habit just to put things in perspective. So if people are giving up on their new year's resolutions by February, we haven't even committed to this long enough in order to make a habit.
And oftentimes the resolutions that we're creating anyway are so excessive that they're not going to be a part of your daily routine longterm because it's so much stress on the body, whether that's physically or mentally. So think about what is different about your vision for your family's health currently to next year?
What is getting in the way of you reaching these goals?
And if, for example, you want your family to not eat out so much, what's getting in the way of that? Is it not having enough time to go grocery shopping? Well, if so, how about introducing a routine of placing a grocery order for delivery or pick up, or maybe setting up recurring auto-deliveries of your family staples?
You can place this on your calendar to set aside the time to do it, because I don't know about you, but if it's not in my Google calendar, it's not happening. So set yourself up for success. If you're going to do something every single week as a part of your weekly, put it on the calendar as a recurring task for you to do and check off your list.
Set aside that time for you to prioritize your health and your family's health, because it's not just going to happen. We have to set aside the time and be intentional about reaching these goals and setting up your routine. Children thrive on routines, especially kids with autism. And so implementing this routine really starts with you. Drastic changes can be really overwhelming for kids on the spectrum, especially drastic changes to the diet for selective eaters.
So, if you're looking to change your family's or your child's diet in the new year, or you're working on expanding their diet. I suggest you start with one thing and add to it from there, instead of just taking away all of their preferred foods and using that, starve it out method that we've talked about before that isn't successful for kids on the spectrum.
Instead, let's find some alternatives where we can gradually switch over to these healthier options or options that are going to help your child thrive. And that way we can take these step-by-step approaches. In order to help your child build confidence and not feel extremely stressed out when all of their safe foods are gone. So instead of creating these drastic changes, why don't we take these small steps in recurring pieces of your routine in order to be successful for you and your child? I love walking families through an exercise on how to brainstorm all of the nutrition and lifestyle goals that you want to have for your child, because it can be hard to sit down and just start from scratch on what you'd like to do. Especially if you're a little unsure about your nutrition goals or nutrition for autism in the first place. So I actually do this in one of my previous episodes, episode four, and it's called getting started with nutrition for autism.
So I'd recommend grabbing a piece of paper or opening up the notes app on your phone and listening to that episode to help you brainstorm and write down along the way. And it walks you through this great approach on how to set up all of your goals on one side and then bring stuff over to the other side that you have the ability to handle right now. What capacity do you have to make these changes?
Stay consistent, build them into your team, and build on top of them so that at the end of the year, you have all these incredible routines and habits set out so that you can stick to these long-term not just until February. So from there, you can design a routine that you can follow daily that is going to help you take all of these little steps. I do encourage you to talk with your partner or your friends about this routine and get support from others in helping you get there.
I believe in you. And I believe 2022 is going to be the year that you take steps toward helping your child feeling their best and thriving.
If you need help with this, I'm here for you. I have a membership to help families with this very thing, to set up routines and help you uncover the complexities of nutrition for autism and make it so much more digestible. It's called the Autism Nutrition Library. There's a member forum where I can support you.
We can talk through these things. You can get a whole community behind you to support you while you're working on changing your child's diet or making nutrition goals. It's a really special and safe place to do this with families who are on your exact journey. So I'd love to support you there. You can join or login at autismnutritionlibrary.com and read all of the details and everything that there has to do with the membership. And I'll meet you on the inside in the member forum. So come introduce yourself and let me know your goals for 2022 and how I can support you in getting there and point you in the right direction.
You'll have to join me next week as we continue to dig deeper into nourishing autism. Please click subscribe so you can be notified when new episodes are published, and I would be so appreciative if you left a five-star rating!
I'll see you next week!
This podcast is brought to you by the Autism Nutrition Library, a one-stop hub and community for all things autism nutrition created to help you explore evidence-based nutrition approaches that have proved to be effective to help individuals with autism feel their best, do their best, and be their best.
Join now by clicking Autism Nutrition Library or by stopping by my Instagram @AutismDietitian. See you next week.
Transcribed by Descript
ABOUT Brittyn Coleman, MS, RDN/LD, CLT
I’m a Registered Dietitian, Autism Nutrition Expert, and the Creator of the Autism Nutrition Library.
I work with parents of children with autism to optimize their child’s diet, supplements, and lifestyle based on their unique needs. I help expand accepted foods for picky eaters, improve digestion and gut health, find the root causes of many symptoms, and ultimately help them feel their best so that they can do their best and be their best.
Not only do I relate to families on a professional level, but also on a personal level. I have been a part of the autism community for over 20 years, as my younger brother was diagnosed on the spectrum at a young age.
I look forward to working with you to uncover the root cause of your child’s symptoms and help your child be the best version of themselves!
