Thought associations with the endocrine system (emotions, hormones) drive habits whether they be good or bad. First we have a thought, and then our endocrine system goes into motion causing us to feel good about going to do something, and then we go do something. We know where to go each day to get states of feeling and hormonal balance that drive us to those behaviors each day; what we eat, physical activity, social activity, and anything that adjusts our body chemistry.
Long story short - with this knowledge we can adjust and drive our own endocrine system and form new thought/action associations to drive right daily habits. I’ve successfully done this.
An interesting phrase you can repeat to yourself towards this goal is this:
“Forget the wrong things. Remember the right things. Form correct associations.”
Overlaying that thought with eating or, frankly, anything can cause you to think about what’s right and wrong (healthy, unhealthy, etc), the associations and memories that cause you to continue wrong behaviors, and this helps enable doing the right behaviors AND thoroughly enjoying it by overlaying the positive emotions with the right behaviors. Another key to this is “forget the wrong things.” If you don’t think about eating those cookies, you won’t eat them because our mind directs our actions; out of sight, out of mind.
If you can do this individually, great, but if you can do this socially, even better. Often social activity can degrade into some sort of unhealthy behavior (overeating for example). We gotta encourage each other to right habits and form POSITIVE endocrine system responses to doing that.
Really, anything can be associated with either positive or negative feelings, so the goal is to rewrite badly written aspects of our memories with associations that drive right habits.