RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
We all know what some health-promoting habits are—eat fruits and
veggies regularly, do some resistance training and cardio weekly, floss
daily, sleep eight hours a night, etc. Many of us also have an idea of how
to improve our fitness—eat less and do hypertrophy training several
times per week to lose fat, eat more and do hypertrophy training several
times per week to gain muscle, and so on. The missing link for most of
us when we set a health or fitness target is not knowing what to do, it’s
getting ourselves to do it! Behavior change is often the hardest part of
goal acquisition. RP has the “what to do” covered, but we are also here
to help you get yourself to do it!
Behavior change consists of several equally important steps:
1. Make an appropriate and realistic goal.
2. Develop awareness of what behaviors you have that get in your way,
and identify what behaviors are needed to get to your goal.
3. Track your behaviors (wanted and unwanted).
4. Develop a plan for change using evidence-based strategies.
5. Tweak, trouble-shoot, and persist!
1. Make an appropriate and realistic goal
Science tells us that beginners are more successful with process and learning
oriented goals, rather than specific outcome goals. This means that if you
are new to nutrition and training, but want to lose weight, your first order of
business is not to set a fat loss goal! It sounds counter intuitive, but if you instead
focus on learning and practicing the behaviors that support a healthy diet and
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RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
regular exercise not only will you probably lose some weight anyway, it will
be much easier to start a diet with a weight loss outcome goal subsequently!
Even if you are feeling antsy, remember that this approach has been shown
to be more effective for long-term weight loss and will save you the stress of
failed diets and time spent re-learning! More advanced people do well with a
challenge and can make a more specific and difficult outcome goal.
You should also make sure that your goal is yours (and not what you think
people are supposed to want). See if you can frame your goal according to
internal values—for example “I want to get in shape because I value hard
work and want my body to be a reflection of this” or “I want to be more fit
so that I can play with my kids/grandkids”. Once you have your goal framed
internally, post it or a picture that reminds you of it somewhere where you will
see it regularly! Also make sure to do a trade-off assessment. Figure out what
sacrifices will be needed to get to your goal and decide if it is still worth it! It
is perfectly okay to tone your target down after you realize what it will take.
Also, avoid trying to make too many changes at once! If you had to cook
dinner for six different families, you wouldn’t schedule them all on the same
night and run house to house—that’s a recipe for burnt meals and cold food.
Goals are similar. Pick one you can handle with your current life and schedule
and work on that first.
2. Develop awareness of what behaviors you have that get in your
way, and identify what behaviors are needed to get to your goal
Think of behaviors like tools in a tool box. For some goals, some tools may be
helpful. But for other goals, some tools may be useless or even get in your
way.
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RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
Start watching yourself more carefully. You can download a mindfulness
app or just practice focusing on the present moment a few times a day to
help hone your awareness. See if you can determine what of your current
behaviors will need to change to get to your goal. Then, identify what new
behaviors you will need to reach your target. Make sure to log any goalsupporting behaviors you already have as well!
3. Track your behaviors (wanted and unwanted)
Make an excel sheet, keep a journal, draw hand graphs on your basement
wall—however you manage it, start to keep track of the unwanted and wanted
behaviors you identified in the last step! Trying to change your behavior
without tracking it is like only weighing yourself on the first and last day of a
three month diet! In order to tell if you are trending in the right direction, you
must keep a log.
4. Develop a plan for change using evidence-based strategies
There are many strategies for change (and thank goodness because behavior
change is hard work!). Here are some targets and example strategies. Check
out RP’s Evidence-Based Habit Building for an in depth list of options.
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RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
Before the behavior
Make unwanted behaviors harder
Example: Put the TV remote in the other room in a closet if you are
trying to decrease TV watching.
Make wanted behaviors easier
Example: Meal prep and put your workout clothes out for the week so
all is ready to go.
Stack your wanted habit onto an existing habit
Example: Do 5 minutes of mindfulness practice after every time you
brush your teeth.
Create a pause between stimulus and response
Example: Waiting two minutes between the craving and the eating can
allow you to make a thoughtful rather than habitual response.
During the behavior
Use temptation bundling
Example: Only watch a show you like to binge watch if you are on the
treadmill if you are trying to get in more cardio.
Perform a similar behavior when target behavior is impossible
Example: Snowed in and can’t get to your martial arts class, spend that
time watching videos on the topic.
Practice new behaviors in many contexts
Example: Trying to increase veggie intake—practice eating veggies at
home, at meals out, on the go etc. starting with the easiest contexts
first.
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RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
After the behavior
Use positive reinforcement
Example: Allow yourself to spend an hour house hunting on Zillow if
you reached your weekly savings target to purchase a home).
Use negative reinforcement
Example: This is NOT punishment; for example if you eat for stress
relief, find a way to relieve stress in other ways so that eliminating the
behavior has less negative impact.
Log insights
Example: Behavior change is a process so keep logging your reactions
and results to learn and progress further.
5. Tweak, trouble-shoot, and persist!
Your first run at behavior change might not work, but this is where all that
logging and tracking comes in! Identify pain points, reassess, and try new
strategies. Take note of the types of strategies that seem to work best for
you and use more of those.
Changing your behavior is like earning a degree or learning to play the piano.
It takes time! Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t go from zero to perfect in a few
weeks. Track your progress so that you can see if you are getting 1% better
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RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
each week and celebrate those wins! Self-efficacy predicts more success, so
the more you can focus on the little changes you are making, the more likely
you will be to get to your end goal. Fall in love with the process of getting to
your goal and identify all of the subgoals on the way, celebrating each tiny
milestone and one day you will look back and realize you’ve surpassed your
original goals!
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