Weight Loss & Diet Plans

How to Drop Pound-Packing Habits

Substitute Good Habits for Bad Ones continued...

Once that happens, Baard says environmental influences will kick in to help form a new habit. "It's going to take some discipline, but if you can just make that one initial break in your habit, those environmental changes will begin reinforcing a new behavior in your brain," he says.

That said, Huber also reminds us that we have to be willing to tolerate a little bit of discomfort every time a habit is changed.

"It doesn't have to be pain, you don't have to be miserable, but you do have to stretch out your comfort zone and recognize that you are going to feel out of sorts until the new behavior pattern is created," says Huberman.

Baard tells WebMD you make the whole process easier if you find a sense of satisfaction in breaking your food habit.

"You want to feel good about yourself, you want to know that food is not telling you what to do, that you can do with food whatever you choose," says Baard. This, he says, is calming to the brain and can help balance the discomfort you feel from veering from the familiar to new, uncharted territories.