Evidence-Based Guide to Fitness Habits
Have you ever looked at a fit person and wondered how he or she stayed this lean all year round? How would it be possible for that person to eat healthy all the time, and show up to the gym 5 times a week without fail? Chances are, you probably know someone like that. And you might think to yourself that he or she is just an extremely motivated individual, hard-wired to enjoy the tortures of life.
Well, the good (or bad) news is that it is nearly impossible to sustain such motivation for long periods of time. The fact is that this ‘madly driven’ person you wish you could be, would actually find it very hard to continuously endure such pains too. I mean, who in the right mind would honestly prefer plain, tasteless salad over mouth-watering donuts, or waking up at 5 am in the morning to run over sleeping in on a lazy Saturday morning?
So how does this person resist temptations and stick to the program all the time? The answer lies in changing habits. In this article, I’ll be taking a scientific approach on how to build good habits for fitness and how to break bad ones. Let’s dive in.
I’ve always thought people who wake up early to run are crazy - until I learn about the power of habits.
What is a Habit?
You can’t stay focused on every single thing you do throughout the day. Mundane activities like brushing your teeth should not require any thought to it. Otherwise, you’ll probably be mentally drained at the end of the day. Along come habits, which is an efficient way to get through the day.
There isn’t an exact definition of what a habit is. But a habit is basically a behavior that is initiated by a cue, with a reward resulting from that behavior. As the cue, behavior and reward is repeated time and time again, a habit loop is formed. And whenever a person is faced with the cue, the behavior is triggered.
For example:
Cue: You get into the car in the morning to head to work.
Behavior: You take the same route daily - train and then bus.
Reward: You reach work successfully.
or more specifically for fitness,
Cue: You finish your dinner.
Behavior: You eat a sweet dessert.
Reward: You feel satisfied.
The behaviors in the above two situations are a result of habitual actions - as long as you’re faced with the cue, you don’t have to think about what you’re doing anymore. And the reward can be something very small, like getting to work, or something that relives bad feeling, like satisfying your sweet cravings. However, this can backfire in many ways. For example, getting into the car in the morning on the holiday, but ending up at work, or craving for desserts every single time you finish dinner.
Habits can be intentional or not, and the more times this cycle of cue, behavior and reward is repeated, the stronger and more automatic the habit becomes, as less cognitive effort is required. This means that it is harder to break those habits, which can be a double-edged sword.
However, if used right, building habits is a much better way to change behaviors compared to relying on sheer willpower.
“We are what we repeatedly do.” - Aristotle
How to Build Good Habits
Now you know how important habits are, as it allows fit people to stick to their exercise and dietary routines without much thought. A study showed that 92% of the people who lost weight made a habit of weighing themselves and eating at regular frequency. Another study showed how having good exercise habits helped a study group keep their weight loss off sustainably.
But the most important question is: how do we build better habits? Here I will be giving 3 tips on how to build good habits.
Plan, Plan, Plan!
If you think that planning to work out at the gym more frequently, or planning to pack lunch as much as possible is good planning, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t, and will not help you create good habits. Planning means setting specific times on days of the week to work out. Planning means taking time off on weekends to head to the supermarket to buy ingredients for your meal prep for the week. Planning also means thinking about how you would respond to obstacles and tough decisions when things do not go according to plan.
For example,
How will you respond if you have a last minute birthday lunch with colleagues at a place with limited healthy food options? Take the easy way out and order whatever you want? Pick the healthy option instead? Or eat your meal prep food at your desk before heading over and only ordering drinks there?
How will you respond if you are down with a shoulder injury? Skipping gym altogether? Or doing light cardio and leg work instead?
A good template would be: “If (obstacle) arises, I will (respond in this manner)”. In this way, it is much easier to make decisions when you’re faced with such dilemma. Planning also means putting your decision-making to autopilot, regardless of how you are feeling that day. And yes, these have been supported by studies.
Don’t underestimate the power of planning.
Do it Slowly and Sustainably
It may be quite daunting to build brand new habits, especially habits that can change a huge part of your life. Thus, the new habit should be small enough such that you are able to successfully complete it every time, with not too much difficulty. This will help create a habit loop, and as you build momentum and the habit loop gets stronger, you can then start to explore stretching it further.
For example, if you have never worked out before, attempting to build a habit of heading to the gym 7 days a week every morning can be overwhelming, and may cause you to give up after a few days. Instead, you might want to set 1 hour for 2 to 3 days in week to exercise. After a few weeks when you feel that things are getting easier and a habit loop is starting to take shape, you can think about increasing the exercise frequency. Another example is packing meals once a week for a start, then slowly increasing its frequency as you get more comfortable.
Over time, these small changes will add up to a huge transformation in your life.
Pair a Good Habit with a Temptation or another Habit
What better way to pick up a habit than pairing it with something that you’ve already been doing regularly? And even better, pairing it with something that you truly enjoy.
For example,
Before every meal, I will drink 2 glasses of water.
Pairing leg day which you absolutely hate, with chest day which you will never miss.
After I reach home daily, I will put on my workout clothes, and not take them off until I complete my exercise.
I will brush my teeth right after dinner so as not to snack late at night.
You will be more likely to do something if you pair it with something you love doing. This will increase your chances of successfully building good habits. And yes, again, research has shown that this works.
“At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it.” - Steven Pressfield
At some point, it is easier to stay the same doing these good habits, instead of changing them. When it feels better to go to the gym than to laze around on the couch feeling like something is not right, you know that you’ve successfully created a new good habit.
How to Break Bad Habits
Having bad habits can be even more detrimental than not having good habits in achieving your fitness goals . Therefore, it is important to learn how to break bad habits.
Changing your Cue or Environment
One of the first things to breaking bad habits is to identify the cue or environment you are in, like the place you are at, the time, your emotional state, the people around you, or what action preceded the habit. Some examples of cues that result in formation of bad habits would be eating from the tub of ice-cream in your freezer, or being with friends who love to binge drink.
After identifying the cue that you know is bad for you, it’s time to take action. And by taking action, I do not mean staying away from those friends forever. Instead you should them about your goals. If they truly love and support you, they will understand and support your goals too. Other examples of taking action to change the environment include not storing junk food at home, or driving to dinner to avoid alcoholic drinks after. These simple practices will go a long way to help curb temptation.
In fact, a study showed that the group that seemingly showed better self-control had surprisingly less willpower to resist temptation. Researchers found that the reason why they showed better self-control was because they avoid the environment that caused the temptations, which means they experienced less temptations. Therefore, if you think you lack the willpower to resist temptation, avoiding it altogether may be a better solution.
Keeping away food that you tend to overeat may be a good option if you easily give in to temptations.
Substitute the Behavior
Sometimes, eliminating the behavior completely can be very difficult. Instead you would want to think of how you can substitute the behavior to something that produces similar rewards.
For example,
The reward of eating dessert after dinner is to satisfy your sweet tooth. To completely curb the behavior of eating dessert may be mentally too challenging for you. The behavior of eating a fruit yogurt instead can produce a similar reward, but at lower calories and being more filling.
The reward of heading to the cafe is taking a break from work at 3 pm daily. To completely stop taking a break from work can be too tiring for you. The behavior of walking around your office to have a chat with your colleagues instead of going to the cafe where you will buy snacks can produce a similar reward of taking a break, but will also prevent snacking.
Conclusion
You probably know what you need to do to get in shape - how often to work out, what to eat, and what routines to follow. But this isn’t what most people need. Yes, it is definitely important to know how to optimize fat gain and muscle loss, but the truth is, most people struggle with sticking with a program.
Fortunately, building healthy habits and breaking unhealthy ones mean that you don’t really have to rely on willpower and discipline to force yourself to work out or eat clean. But you will need to make an effort to build or break habits, which can be much simpler than you think. Everything will then become second nature, which leads you to doing the right thing without conscious effort, bringing you to long-term success.
P.S. - still need help on building good habits and breaking bad ones to achieve your fitness goals? Drop me a message!
