Bad habits are hard to break, and new habits are hard to make. This one is worth the trouble.
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According to a study done, 40% of our daily activities consist of our habits. But not all habits are created equally…
Certain habits, known as cornerstone habits, have the power to transform your whole life. They set the stage, making it easier to implement other smaller habits. In my experience there are four very important cornerstone habits – eating clean, training, sleeping, meditation.
This is the first of a series of articles that will deal with creating cornerstone habits. Each article will look at a different habit and show you how to implement it using a very simple system.
First, we deal with my favourite habit. Exercise. I am sure that no-one doubts the great benefits of exercise. You will find that once you start exercising other things in your life will also change.
The Habit loop
Charles Duhigg, author of The power of habit, identified three components that govern any habit.
Every habit has:
- a cue
- a routine
- and a reward.
The routine is the actual activity that you do e.g. to smoke. The cue is what precedes and causes you to do the activity e.g. a time of the day, stress or drinking. The reward is the after effect, how you feel, what you have gained from the experience.
In order to create a new habit we will use the framework of the loop to our advantage.
Motivation
Before you start exercising you might want to consider the WHY. I have found in my experience as a physical therapist that external motivation seldom lasts. If you are unable to link exercise to some deeper meaning, you are likely to start strong and fade quick. Sit down and do some real thinking.
- Do you want to exercise to lower your risk of disease?
- Do you want that elusive six pack?
- Do you just want a healthier life?
Whatever the reason. Find it and keep it in front of you when things become hard. And trust me, they will.
Measurements
To really see the effect of exercise you should do a few basic measurements that will help keep you motivated and track your progress.
- Weight
- Simple. Jump on a scale once a week, at the same time, at the same place.
- Tape measure
- Measure your waist, inner thighs and biceps. Do this once a week.
- Body fat
Most gyms will have a personal trainer that could assist you in measuring your body fat percentage with calipers. Do not become too obsessed with this metric.
- Vitals
- Get your doctor to check your resting heart rate, blood pressure and oxygen saturation.
- Goal specific measurements
If you have been training for a while you might want to use specific outcome measures such as a 1RM or your 1/4 mile time.
Cue
The first step is linking exercise with a specific cue. You need to actively think of this link when the cue arrives. So which cues have worked for others?
Lace up your shoes
Go to your room and start changing. Get in to your workout gear. Completing the first step in the sequence will help motivate you to complete the whole sequence.
Wake up earlier
Make a firm commitment to training in the early. Know that when your alarm goes off it is not merely a signal to wake up. But a reminder that it is time to go and train. Personally, I have found this to be the most helpful to me. If you battle with early mornings you might want to read this.
Listen to music
Listening to music before training can really pump you up. Make sure it is something with a firm beat and up tempo. If you listen to certain music during your workout then you can use that to your advantage too. Chances are your body will associate certain music with movement and therefore anticipate movement when you start playing it.
Action
One of the reasons many people fail to stick to a new exercise regime is because they start too big and become overwhelmed. Your training programme needs to be strenuous enough to provide results but you should enjoy what you do.
Start small. Commit to going to the gym for 20 minutes. Do some treadmill walking and some light full body exercises. The next week, increase your time by 10 minutes.
Start small. Do one round of the circuit (most gyms have them). Around 10 reps of each exercise. The next week increase your sets to 2.
Reward
In the case of exercise, you do not need to reward yourself. The exercise will do that for you by making you breath easier, feel better and look better.
The reward goes back to your initial why. If your goal was to lose weight then doing a weekly weigh in and seeing the pounds drop (if you are eating correctly) will be your reward. If you wanted to be healthier then seeing your resting heart rate come down is reward in itself.
But of course, if you have been training hard and eating well for most of the time then you can go ahead and have that pizza, burger, ice-cream with no feelings of guilt.Â
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Picture: Flickr/Dr. Abdullah Naser
