Sometimes no matter how much great nutrition advice we get, it really comes down to our ability to create sustainable healthy lifestyle habits. With that, I created this quick “pop-up” blog post to help readers simplify their healthy lifestyle routines. See if you can apply any of this to your day-to-day life. Enjoy, and tell me what you think in the comments!
Start Early in the Day
Your willpower tends to be highest at the beginning of the day, so harness that energy and use it to your advantage. A great example is crockpot cooking: your desire to be healthy can motivate you to toss ingredients into a crockpot in the morning, so you’re not dealing with cooking when you’re tired after a long day at work.
Make Healthy Lifestyle Habits Convenient
If something is difficult or complicated to do, it’s even less enjoyable when you’re doing it over and over. Make sure that whatever habits you’re trying to establish are:
- simple
- relatively easy and, if there’s any complexity (like needing a packed gym bag)
- scheduled into your routine so it’s easy to get it done.
Have Fun!
If you’re doing something you hate, you’re not going to magically fall in love with it by doing it over and over. Some people say you should “change what you think is fun”, but I’m not sure that’s realistic. Instead, find things that you actually enjoy doing and establish these as your habits!
Use Action Triggers
Triggers are things that automatically lead to something else happening. A trigger you might have now would be something like: finish eating dinner, rinse plate and put in dishwasher. So the rinsing of the plate was triggered by the finishing of a meal. Similarly, see how you can tie new habits to other actions. For example: include a 10 minute stroll at the end of lunchtime. After a while, every time you eat lunch you’ll think to yourself: “I should take a quick walk now!”
Using these types of techniques to establish habits can be the difference between success and failure. As you look to establish even more healthy habits, take a peek at the new program I’m offering to help you do just that – set up healthy food and activity habits for weight loss and lifelong maintenance. Check it out right here!