A Compact Guide to Creating the Fitness Habit- post written by Leo Babauta
I came across this excellent post on Leo Babauta's website www.zenhabits.net; it's too good not to share! Happy New Year! Let's create a fitness habit; why not try that new fitness class you've had your eye on, and book it with the SportPass app! http://www.sportpass.me/
A new year, a new slate of resolutions.
Perhaps the biggest resolution at New Yearâs is to get fit â start exercising, start eating right, and all that jazz.
But resolutions never last. As you might already know, Iâm not a fan of resolutions.
Instead of creating a list of resolutions this year, create a new habit.
Habits last, and they lead to long-term fitness (and more). They require more patience, but they are worth the wait.
As some of you know, fitness habits are what started me along the path to changing my life. I quit smoking, started running. Then I started eating healthier, became vegetarian (now vegan), quit the junk food addiction, started doing other types of workouts (bodyweight, weights, Crossfit, anything that was fun).
And six years later, Iâm nearly 39 years old and in the best shape of my life. I have less bodyfat than any time since high school, more muscle than ever in my life, and I can run and hike and play longer than anytime in the history of Leo. Thatâs not to brag, but to show you what can be done with some simple fitness habits.
The appealing thing about many fitness programs is that they promise quick results. You see testimonials from people who have gone through the program and lost 30 lbs. and gain a washboard stomach in just 4 weeks!
Thatâs all complete crap.
First, most people wonât achieve those results. Second, and more importantly, if you do get quick results, youâll reverse those results very quickly ⌠because you havenât created new habits. Youâve just done something intense and unsustainable for a short period of time. Thatâs nearly worthless.
You should be focused on long-term results, and more importantly on a healthy lifestyle. A healthy lifestyle starts with changing your habits and ends with long-term results.
Changing habits takes time. I recommend one habit at a time, and give yourself about a month per habit. That takes patience, but you shouldnât try to see amazing results in just 30 days. You should enjoy your new lifestyle, which will be an amazing result in itself that you can achieve immediately. In a matter of months and years, your body and health will change too.
Letâs say you change one habit at a time, one per month or so. Youâll have 12 new habits every year. Even if you only formed 6 habits that stuck and that you loved, youâd be amazed at what kind of changes those 6 habits would create in your life and fitness. If you did 6 habits a year for three years, youâd be transformed.
If you donât have the patience to change one habit at a time, or focus on enjoying your new habits rather than getting quick results, you should stop reading now.
So letâs say youâre just starting out ⌠what habit should you start with?
My favorite habit is daily exercise, but if youâre looking to lose weight probably the most important habits relate to eating.
In truth, which habit you choose first matters very little in the long run. You will be changing many little habits over the course of the next few years, and the order of those habits is unimportant. What matters is that you start.
Here are some habits that Iâd start with, if you havenât created them yet:
Exercise for just 5 minutes a day, adding 5 minutes per week. Make it a fun exercise.
Drink water instead of sweet drinks.
Replace fried foods with vegetables.
Eat fruit and nuts for snacks.
Eat lean protein, including plant proteins, instead of red meat.
Add strength exercises to your routine â pushups, pullups, squats, lunges.
If youâve been doing all of the above for awhile, add some weights â compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, bench presses, dips, chinups, overhead presses and rows.
Iâve found that losing weight is simple: eat lots of veggies and plant or lean protein, reduce calories, do some kind of cardio, lift some weights to preserve muscle.
Gaining muscle is also fairly simple: eat lots of veggies and plant or lean protein, increase calories, do some kind of cardio to preserve heart health, lift heavy weights to grow muscle.
The weights should be compound lifts and heavy, the cardio should be enjoyable. Getting âtonedâ, btw, is just gaining muscle and losing the fat that covers the muscle, whether youâre a man or woman.
These are my top principles for forming habits. If youâve read my writings on habits before, this wonât be new to you, but often itâs good to review these principles for things youâve missed:
Make it social. This is an incredibly powerful too. I highly, highly recommend Fitocracy to everyone, as itâs a way to make exercise fun and social (invite code: ZENHABITS). It turns fitness into a game, and you log your exercises, get points, encourage others, complete fitness quests, get props for workouts youâve done. Other great ways to make your habit change social: report on your daily progress to friends and family through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or email, find a workout partner, get a coach, join a running group, join online fitness forums, join a class.
Do one habit at a time only. People often skip this one because they think they are different than everyone else, but Iâve found this to be extremely effective. You increase your odds of success with just one habit at a time, for many reasons: habits are hard to form because they require lots of focus and energy, having many habits means youâre spreading yourself too thin, and if you canât commit to one habit at a time, youâre not fully committed.
Make it your top priority. People often put off fitness and diet stuff because theyâre too busy, too tired, to stressed out by big projects or the holidays, etc. But in my experience, those are great reasons you *should* be exercising. So make your new diet or exercise habit one of your absolute top priorities for the day. If you donât have time, you need to make time.
Enjoy the habit. This is extremely important, and most people ignore it. If the habit is fun, you will stick with it longer. And even better, if you are enjoying it, you immediately win. You donât need to wait for a bunch of pounds lost or other results â you get instant results because youâre enjoying the change. I find activities I enjoy, I join challenges or races to make exercise fun, I enjoy a conversation with a friend during a run, I eat healthy foods that are delicious (berries â yum!) and focus on savoring those foods. Focus on the enjoyment, and donât make the habit change a big sacrifice.
Many people set fitness goals for the year. Iâve done it myself, but lately Iâve found that I can get fit without them. For one thing, when you set goals, they are often arbitrary, and so you are spending all your effort working towards a basically meaningless number. And then if you donât achieve it, you feel like you failed, even if the number was arbitrary to start with.
You can create habits without goals â I define goals as a predefined outcome that youâre striving for, not activities that you just want to do. So is creating a habit a goal? It can be, or you can approach it with the attitude of âit doesnât matter what the outcome of this habit change is, but I want to enjoy the change as I do itâ.
So enjoy the habit change, in the moment, and donât worry what the outcome of the activity is. The outcome matters very little, if you enjoy the journey.
The journey to fitness can have an infinite number of paths, and setting your path in advance by setting goals is limiting. Allow yourself to change course on a whim, without guilt of not achieving a goal, and youâll find new paths youâd never have anticipated when you set out.
But the most important step of the journey is the first one. After that, the most important step is the one youâre presently taking. So take that step, and enjoy it.
#NewYearsResolutions #FitnessHabit #HowToKeepYourNewYearsResolutionÂ
