How to Jump Start Healthier Choices in 2021

Canyons are dug slowly over time. These huge, magnificent changes are the result of small, incremental changes, over a long period of time. When it comes to our health and fitness, it is hard to get the ball rolling back in the right direction. I don't care who you are or how disciplined you are (or were). It is easier to eat that shitty food, have those couple extra drinks, and binge watch another show on Netflix instead of exercising. Maybe it was the pandemic that knocked you off your good habits. Maybe it was your first baby, or a promotion at work that now takes up all your time. Whatever it was, it can seem too daunting, too hard, too uncomfortable to get back on track. We have all been there.

I want to share a concept that I use with all of my clients when they are finally uncomfortable enough to reach out for guidance on how to start getting fit and healthy again.

The first thing I have each client do is to do a SMART Goal. You can refer back to a previous blog post about what those are, why they are important, and how they work here. The reason I do this is that it helps identify a realistic and actionable goal for themselves with an appropriate deadline for attaining that goal. This is typically easy for them because they have a good idea about what they want for themselves and the SMART Goals process just helps refine it into something more specific. This first step, while easy, is huge, because most clients feel some weight being lifted off their shoulders. They have taken a positive action towards their goal.

The next step looks a little different for everyone, based on their goal, but the general idea is the same. Together, we look at the goal/s and figure out the baby steps required to get there. This may be diet tweaks, like cutting out fast food and replacing it with something they enjoy that is equally convenient, but a little healthier. This also frequently includes slowly adding in some activity and removing 30 minutes of Netflix time, for example.

What is the same for everyone is that I don't change everything all at once. I always approach clients with little changes, just a coupe at a time, so that they do not become overwhelmed. For diet, I have them keep a food journal for a week (what they ate, portion size, when they ate it, how they felt, etc.). Then we review it, and make a change or two. Depending on how the client does with those changes, we make a couple more in another week or two, and so on. The changes I make can be as simple as instead of eating a Big Mac for lunch every day, they get a grilled chicken salad from Chik-Fil-A instead, or make themselves a ham and cheese sandwich to take to work with them. I don't jump from the bad habit to the ideal replacement. We do that over time. I baby step them from a poor diet choice, to one that is a little better, and the a little better and a little better, over a period of time.

I use the same approach with activity. We start small and manageable, adding volume and complexity over time, always moving at a pace that challenges the client, but doesn't overwhelm them. Over the course of 4-6 weeks, we have probably made 3-4 diet and 3-4 activity improvements. Some clients move faster, some move slower, but the point of it and of this blog post, is to help folks realize that you don't have to change everything today. It takes time to build long lasting healthier habits, period. Progress, not perfection.

So what is the tip? The tip is to keep two journals for one week. One for diet and one for activity. Just go about your regular week, but keep notes on what you are eating and drinking and what you do with your time beyond work. On week two, pick 1-2 things from your diet log that seem the most unhealthy to you, but are also not such a big sacrifice that you can't stick to switching them out with a healthier alternative. Do the same thing with your activity log. Pick 1 time of the day where you can carve out 20-30 minutes, 2x a week consistently, to do something active (light jog, a walk, a bike ride, a small workout). Then commit to those few small changes for a couple of weeks. See how you feel (my guess is a least a little better, if not A LOT). You may even start to get pretty enthused because it wasn't as hard as you thought it would be and you feel better about making better choices. After a couple weeks, if you are up for it, make another change in the diet and/or excise you are doing. Keep this up for 6 months, and you won't believe how far you've come. The amount of changes you have made and stuck with, when you look back on them, will be much bigger than you could have imagined doing when you started. Like the canyon in the picture, healthy habits are not made overnight, but over the course of time by making small incremental changes.

Little changes and little tweaks, with a little bit of time in between them, become big changes, and the benefits compound over time. Your life is an ultra marathon. Good habits and behavior changes are not made and won in the first mile. Trainers can be helpful at any point along your path. I say this a lot because, well, I am a personal trainer and I believe in, and have seen, the impact a personal trainer can have along the journey. Sometimes it is to help navigate those first few changes you make, and sometimes they are there after the first obvious changes are made and you need help optimizing the next set of changes. I have a lot of clients that utilize me in different ways along their journey. Nothing feels better than when a client can go out on their own and don't need you there week in and week out. That always means the trainer has done their job well. The goal is for the client to be able to take what they learn from the trainer and be able to continue to implement that in their lives to keep the forward progress going on their own.