Motivation

There is only one reason a diet will fail. Because it is not sustainable meaning there is no follow through.

Most diets out there do in fact work for health or fat loss IF you follow through.

You’d like to get lean, fit and healthy? For me this means adventures with the family and simply run around with the kids as they grow up. Do you feel the need, or the Doctor has told you, to learn what food and exercise works for you to have a healthy life? Ideally I reckon it should be food and exercise you enjoy.

Then how about following through? Walk the talk. Improve eating and exercise habits to fit with your unique life.

To follow through I talk about ‘life habits’, which simply put is:

The stuff you do regularly

Note : No matter how motivated you are to start with to change, if a diet is not sustainable given your lifestyle and preferences it is unlikely you’ll follow through. You’ll need personalised advice to test and learn strategies that aren’t just some fad diet.

Tips to follow through to improve life habits:

Lower expectations. Sounds negative but it creates a lot of positive motivation to keep going when goals are met. You’ll feel happy to have met expectations, then super happy to exceed expectations. It’ll build in consistency over time which is fundamental to engraining your new habits.

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Schedule it in the calendar. Simple and effective. If it’s exercise ideally schedule with a friend to ensure follow through. If its an eating plan, use that to do the shopping so you are prepared in advance.

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“Don’t think – just do” If you don’t feel like putting in the effort at the time, avoid the decision and do what you said you would for only 5 minutes. That’s it. Nothing scary or forced. I’ll bet that you’ll say “well I’m already cooking or out for a run, I’ll just keep going”. Tip to avoid decision fatigue is to plan your eating and exercise schedule the night before. For example, put out running gear by the bed to get into immediately on waking.

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Use risk or reward to reinforce what you’ve done. Examples of this could be allowing a piece of chocolate after doing exercise or making a bet with a friend you’ll follow through until you reach a certain specific goal.

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Find food or exercise you enjoy to keep motivated. When I wanted to bulk up the gym was the furtherest from my mind! I found it was enjoyable to explore callisthenics, which has endless possibilities. Having a bit of fun with it is necessary for follow through. The same goes for cooking and finding foods you like that are healthy and fit with your goals.

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Create ‘The Streak’. Decide on the daily or weekly thing, like cooking or 5 fruit and veg a day to mark it off on a calendar each time you succeed. When you have a few X’s on your calendar, you’ll want to keep the streak going, that becomes super motivating.

In the end these habits define who you are.

Cheers,

Jay