This week, I was solidly back on my chosen eating plan. Did I lose? Just a tiny bit; and in a character building exercise, I actually gained weight at the beginning of the week. Talk about testing my patience! But at least I’m getting back on the right path.

True lifestyle changes occur when habits are changed, and I have many to change; someone once told me that it takes 21 days to truly form a consistent habit, and dropping even one of those days means you may have to start again from scratch. I don’t know if that’s true, but it makes sense; I think that’s how so many of us, when trying to lose weight, tend to slowly drift off course rather than jump off the weight loss wagon intentionally.

Choosing which habits to intentionally change is my next challenge, and my dog taught me a bit of a lesson in that regard; I may need to open myself up and really look at the habits I keep, because something I’m unaware of — something I’ve just learned to do (the wrong way, perhaps) — may be the key to my ultimate success.

Bonnie, asking for some lap time.

Yes, my dog.

Her name is Bonnie, and she’s a mini schnauzer we’ve had since she was a puppy. The last dog I had, although I loved her dearly, was a rescue dog with a set of built-in habits that never completely got changed, so when we brought Bonnie home, we very consciously dedicated ourselves to breeding good habits in her.

One was completely inadvertent. Instead of closing doors in the house to keep her out of specific rooms, we used portable sliding window screens; they stand about 15” high or so, and when they were in place, she made no attempt to go over or around them. (Maybe because she could see through them.) They weren’t always in place; we could just slide one across the doorway and she’d stop, and then watch us (sometimes sadly) through the screen. But she never challenged the screen; she accepted that as long as the screen was in place, she would just patiently wait until we stopped doing whatever we were doing. (At the time, my husband was recovering from knee surgery and having a young puppy at his ankles wasn’t necessarily a good thing.)

Bonnie has been full grown for several years, now. She weighs enough and is tall enough that if she really, really wanted to go through one of the screens, she could easily do it. She could hop over it or paw at it, and maybe push it out of the way. It’s rare that I have the screens up anymore; I really have no need, but if the screen does get put in place, Bonnie does what she’s been trained to do: wait patiently by the screen.

She’s also a great jumper, and bigger than our former dog, who was a bit of a problem child. She could jump up on a dining room chair and cruise whatever happened to be on the dining table. I learned this when I first adopted her; despite her 13 pounds and small stature, she jumped up on the table and ate 5 out of 6 heartworm pills — which ended up with a trip to the vet to pump her stomach. This was just the start of any number of antics with that dog.

And yet, at 20 pounds and much taller (and younger), Bonnie will jump up on the couch easily, or in our laps when we’re sitting outside, but it has never once occurred to her to scavenge the dinner table.

Is she a good dog? Yes, absolutely — when it comes to animals, I think part of their behavior is inbred, and the rest is taught. Bonnie is a lucky pup in both cases, but most of all, she’s in the habit of being good. Those habits are consistent.

Have I been as consistent as I could be with my chosen weight loss plan and journey? Nope. And I need to be.

It’s time to change some habits.