Have I Achieved Lasting Healthy Lifestyle Change?

I have been tracking my diet and exercise daily for the past six months (using the free Lose It app for my Android phone) as part of a successful gambit to lose 50 pounds. An exception to this is when I go on vacations. I allow myself full freedom to eat whatever and whenever I want, and the only exercise I usually get is from walking around seeing cool things at the places I visit.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when I got back from a 6-day trip to the south rim of the Grand Canyon and found that I had not gained any weight at all. In fact, I had lost a pound.

That got me wondering, have I achieved lasting healthy lifestyle change?

I had heard about this concept of lasting healthy lifestyle change before, but I never thought it could happen to me. The idea is that when you do something consistently for long enough, it becomes second nature (or second order change, as we say in the vernacular of marriage and family therapy).

In addition to measuring my caloric intake each day, I guess I had also subconsciously started to make healthier choices about what kinds of food to eat. The logic was simply that by choosing to eat more fruits and vegetables, instead of junky caloric food, I could stay within my dietary guidelines set by my weight loss goal. I like to make and eat food. Fruits and veggies are lower in calories per unit weight, so I know that I can eat more of them on a given day without exceeding my calorie quota (set by the Lose It! Android app).

I don't know if I have achieved lasting healthy lifestyle change, but I may have.