Healthy Habits Suck: How to Get Off the Couch and Live a Healthy Life… Even If You Don’t Want to

"A realistic read that will prod even the most stubborn fast-food eating couch potato to take action toward a healthier lifestyle."
--Library Journal

Salad instead of steak? Working out? Skipping that second beer or glass of wine? Healthy habits are THE WORST.

If you're someone who gets up every morning and can't wait for your run, considers eating sweet potatoes a splurge, and sets aside thirty minutes before work to meditate--this book isn't for you. If you're someone who thinks about getting up to go for a run but goes back to sleep, regrets last night's dinner of fast food, and can barely get to work on time--let alone meditate--then this book will help you find the motivation you've been looking for to live your healthiest life, even when you don't want to.

With this funny, in-your-face guide, you won't find advice on how to "enjoy" exercise, or tips for making broccoli and kale taste as good as donuts and ice cream. What you will find are solid skills to help you actually do the healthy things you know you should be doing. Using these skills--based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and neuroscience--you'll learn to find the motivation you're really craving to adopt healthy habits, even if they do suck. You'll also discover how to accept self-criticism, develop self-compassion, and live a more meaningful life.

This book not only acknowledges that many healthy habits suck, it uses science to explain why we want the things we want (junk food), crave the things we crave (sugar), and dislike the things we dislike (exercise). At the end, you'll feel validated in feeling like these things are the absolute worst. But you'll also find the motivation to do them anyway.

Dayna Lee-Baggley, PhD, exercises regularly and rarely enjoys it. She is a regular runner who competes in 10K races and never gets a runner’s high. She drinks green smoothies and hates vegetables. Every time her kid asks her to go do some physical activity (biking, swimming, etc.) she thinks ’crap, I don’t want to do that, ’ and she does it anyway.

Dayna is also a registered clinical psychologist, who specializes in health. She holds an assistant professor appointment in the department of family medicine, and cross appointments in the departments of surgery, and psychology and neuroscience at Dalhousie University; and an adjunct professor appointment in the department of industrial and organizational psychology at Saint Mary’s University. She works as a clinical health psychologist at the Nova Scotia Health Authority for the multi-organ transplant program. She is director of the Centre for Behaviour Change, which conducts research and training in chronic disease management. She is an internationally recognized trainer in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). She is president of the Atlantic chapter of the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), and vice chair of the Halifax Chapter of the Canadian Obesity Network. She was the recipient of the 2017 Women of Excellence Award for her contributions to health, sport, and wellness (Canadian Progress Club Halifax Cornwallis). Her areas of expertise include facilitating health behavior change, managing and treating obesity, adapting to chronic health conditions, professional resiliency/burnout prevention in health care providers, and healthy workplaces.

Foreword writer Russ Harris is an internationally acclaimed ACT trainer, and author of the best-selling ACT-based self-help book, The Happiness Trap, which has sold over 600,000 copies and been published in thirty languages. He is widely renowned for his ability to teach ACT in a way that is simple, clear, and fun--yet extremely practical.