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Building healthy habits next year! · SAY GRACE | Weight Loss + Health for Overwhelmed Women- Stress, Busy, Consistency, Realistic, Motivation, Starting Over, No Restrictions

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Music.
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Hey y'all, over the next few weeks, we're playing back some of our most listened
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to episodes as I take some time to prepare for all the amazing things we're bringing to you in 2025.
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Today's episode is about how to build healthy habits, because I know as we're
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looking towards the new year, we are already thinking about the healthier habits that we want to adopt.
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So today we're going to talk about that and some ways that I use to build healthy habits.
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When trying to get healthy, there is no shortage of tips and tricks for what to do.
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Drink more water, do strength training exercises, cut out the junk,
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walk more, rest more, eat more vegetables, and so on.
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But the real struggle comes when you try to implement these things you've been told.
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It usually works for a short time, but then you fall back into those old habits.
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Did you know that there's a reason for this and a way to overcome it?
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Today, I want to talk about my trick for building healthier habits and sticking
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to them. Let's get into it.
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All right, so I cannot take credit for this episode today.
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I was enlightened by this method several years ago, and it really changed the
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way that I just kind of view building healthier habits.
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And we all kind of practice it around here.
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Like Jess does it for certain things in his life. I do it for certain things
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in my life. We are starting to kind of instill it in Sarah Mason.
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And then of course, my clients know all about this.
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And so it is just something that is so easy and also makes you feel accomplished in your day.
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And it is called habit stacking. Okay, I highly recommend the book by James Clear, Atomic Habits.
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And it's really just about how to understand how habits are formed.
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And then also how to make sure that you are adopting the habits that you want
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to adopt. Because I know none of us are.
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None of us are not aware of the fact that we can, you know, set our hopes high
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for certain goals, but then fail miserably at the habits that we need to do to actually get there.
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So he addresses this in the book. And so I do want to kind of start with an explanation behind it.
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I think this is super cool, super cool piece of information to just have in your brain.
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So a study was done on newborns that showed that adults have 41% less neurons
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than the average newborn.
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Okay, so newborns have way more neurons than adults in according to this study.
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And so the reason behind this is because of something called synaptic pruning.
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So synapses are connections between the neurons in your brain.
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Okay, and so the idea is, is that as you age, as we like go from,
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you know, infancy to toddlerhood through,
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you know, adolescence and then young adulthood, our brain starts to prune away
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or like get rid of the connections between neurons that are not getting used.
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Okay. And then for the connections that are getting used, our brain builds those
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connections, you know, the ones that are getting used more frequently so that
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we get better and better in those specific areas.
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Okay. So, so an example that they use is like, if you practice piano for 10 straight years.
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Your ability to play the piano and your ease of learning like a new complicated
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piano piece is going to be so much more fluid than someone who's,
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who has never played piano or a musical instrument in their life.
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And that's because like the piano players, musical connection is strong.
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And maybe your musical connection is not.
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And so same, like one thing I was thinking of for health, health practices in
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general is like, if you were an athlete growing up,
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I mean, you were conditioned to
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not just physically, but mentally you were conditioned to have to get up,
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put your clothes on to go, you know, do the exercise that you were going to
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do for your, whichever sports you were playing. Okay.
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Consistently, like every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you had practice or every
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Tuesday, Thursday you had.
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And so you, that became a mental conditioning to get up, get dressed,
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go, go do the movements, go do the exercise, go run the track, go do whatever.
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And so if you grow up and didn't do any type of physical like sport or any type
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of athletics, the mental thing,
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ability to to get up and
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put on your clothes to go work out or
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to just step your foot out on the pavement for a
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run may feel a lot harder it may feel a lot less again fluid and that is no
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I mean that is not a coincidence that is a a fact because those neurons the
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connection neurons in your brain are not as strong as someone who may have played
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like 50 million sports in their day you know.
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And so this study showed that, you know, because babies are born more like a
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blank canvas, they have more neurons as babies, but all the connections are weak.
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So the babies are born and they're ready to learn something, right?
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Whereas adults have the less neurons, but the stronger connections because they have done the learning.
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The brain has been, you know, the neurons, the connections have been pruned, okay?
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And so this was just a really good basis for how sometimes, even though we try
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our hardest to like change things about our lives or to like implement more,
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I think more so it's implement new things into our lives.
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Even though we've tried so hard to be a runner, it just seems to feel impossible to us.
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And that may be just because that connection is not very strong. on.
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In the brain. And so aside from, you know, your muscles and lungs are dying,
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like mine do when I try to run.
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But, but there's good news, okay? And that's what we're here to talk about.
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We're not here to talk about how, you know, you can never play the piano or
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run a mile if you didn't as a child.
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We're talking about the good news, okay?
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But I think it's really important to know the reason behind it,
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as with everything that I teach.
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I just think it's once you have an understanding of the behind the scenes of
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why it might be happening, then your understanding or your ability to want to
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continue and keep trying is more present, right?
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Instead of just chalking it up to, oh, I can't do this. Let me give up.
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Now you kind of know, okay, well, this is why maybe it's been a little harder
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for me to run, or maybe it's been a little harder for me to grab a vegetable
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instead of, you know, a French fry or whatever.
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All right. So we have the good news.
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We have the connections, right? We still have connections of the things that
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are strong in our brains. Okay.
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There, if you think about it, there are probably several like small habits in
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your day to day that you don't even realize are happening that are happening.
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Like you're, you're just used to it. There's, there's strong connections.
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And so you remember to do these things.
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For instance, like taking a shower when you get home from work,
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or making coffee first thing in the morning, checking your email when you sit
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down to your computer, cooking dinner when you get home from work.
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I mean, any little or big thing that you just kind of do out of habit.
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These are connections in your brain.
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The connections are strong, so you are remembering to do them, right, naturally.
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And the more you do something, right, the stronger and the more efficient that connection becomes.
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And so the cool thing is that you can take these existing habits that you don't
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even really have to think about and you just do them.
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You can take them and then you can connect them to a habit that you want to have, okay?
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To a habit that you are hoping to have so that you will grow.
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I'm going to kind of walk us through how to do that here because there's a little specifics to it.
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You know, we can just like with everything, just like with weight loss and all
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the things you can overshoot your shot here and end up feeling like,
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oh gosh, this habit stacking stuff doesn't even work for me.
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Well, odds are you probably, you know, made it a little too complex and a little
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too complicated at the beginning.
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And so I want to talk through kind of how to start with a great habit stack
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and, you know, how to identify how and when and where and all that you're going to do it.
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Okay, so the first thing I want to talk about is you need to think about the
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goal that you really want to achieve.
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Okay, and so here we are a weight loss podcast.
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So that's what we're going to talk about. And we're going to talk about,
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you know, something that you hope to accomplish in your weight loss or healthy lifestyle change.
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And so this could be eating more vegetables, right?
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Like, you know, you know the benefits of eating vegetables. And so you just
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you struggle with actually eating more vegetables.
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OK, or it could be drinking more water. You know, you listened to the water
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drinking podcast several weeks back, and you know why it's important to drink more water.
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You just always find yourself at, you know, 9 p.m. realizing that you've only
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gotten 20 ounces in today.
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Or it could be just moving your body more, you know. And so that is up to you.
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You kind of have to establish, first of all, what that main goal is for you,
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okay? And so for me, I'm going to use an example of when I...
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Came home from work and so I really, this was years ago, I was working full
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time and then I came home.
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I'm going to do a podcast on this eventually, but Sarah Mason was diagnosed
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with a crazy food allergy.
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And so I had to come home from work and I was a stay-at-home mom.
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And then I started to build this business on the side, but I was home a lot.
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Okay. And prior to that, I had been on the go a lot.
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So I was, we had a water fountain at work or a water filtered thing at work.
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And I would always fill up my water for on the way to work. And then at work,
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I would fill it up a couple of times.
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And so when I was working full time, I was not struggling to get my water in.
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I mean, I was very hydrated.
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But then when I came home from work and I was just kind of hanging out around
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the house with Sarah Mason all day, I realized that my water intake had really taken a hit.
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And so I started trying to increase my water intake so that I would feel better.
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I mean, I just knew that I wasn't, I knew I wasn't feeling as good as I used
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to physically, but it was like every single day I would just get so caught up
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in whatever we were doing and leave my water behind. And just every single day,
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I was coming up short on that water.
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So for me, that was my focus. Okay, my focus was to get more water in at that time.
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Now, that's my example for the focus. Let's keep moving.
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Okay, so after you figure out the focus, then you are going to stack that,
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you know, something to do with that focus with a habit that you already have.
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Okay, because if it is right when you're doing something that you already do
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every single day, then you start to remember like, hey, okay,
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I need to do these two things, not just this one thing.
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Okay, and so a good example for this to just kind of use in your head is after
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or before I blank, I will blank.
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Okay, so after or before I blank, the first blank is going to be the habit you
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do every day that you kind of do mindlessly.
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And then I will blank. That's the new habit you want to adopt.
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Okay. So think about now we've identified kind of the focus area of where we
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want to start, you know, our new habit.
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Think about some of your old habits or your existing habits that are kind of
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mindless at this point. Okay.
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Think about things that you do every single day. So you get out of the bed,
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you get dressed, you make your coffee, you eat lunch, you brush your teeth.
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These are things that just kind of happen every single day. Okay.
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And then you are going to pair your habit of focus with the existing habit.
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Okay. And so one thing that needs to be said clearly here is the habit needs
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to be highly specific, something that you can immediately do.
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Like it doesn't need to be complicated. You know what I mean?
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It doesn't need to feel like a 12-step process. It needs to be something that
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you feel like you can do just as quickly as you've done your previous habit
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or your existing habit, excuse me.
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And it needs to be very specific. So for me, my habit stack was and still is.
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Before I drink my coffee, I will drink 20 ounces of water because coffee is a given for me.
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Every single day, a girl's having her coffee.
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Every single morning, I'm waking up, washing my face, putting my contacts in,
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and then headed to the kitchen for the coffee, okay?
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And so I have made it a habit of mine for years now to chug my water and get
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my ounces, those first 20 ounces in before I drink my coffee, okay?
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So either while my coffee's brewing, I'm kind of starting sipping on my water,
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but then before I take my first sip of coffee, I want to be done with my water,
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you know, my 20 ounces that I identified.
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Now, I said 20 ounces, right? So before I drink my coffee, I will drink 20 ounces of water.
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I did not say, before I drink my coffee, I'm gonna have some sips of water.
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Before I drink my coffee, I'm going to, you know, drink water or whatever.
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It was very specific because we as humans, we like to have that specific goal, okay?
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And so keeping that in mind, it needs to be highly specific and immediately actionable.
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Man, y'all, it's wild how it can take like a whole day for me to drink 20 ounces
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if I don't have coffee behind it.
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You know, coffee is the motivator in that situation. It can take me a whole
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day or it can take me about five seconds to get that 20 ounces in because I'm
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ready for my coffee. Okay.
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And so it's the same with any other action that you, you know,
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might want to attempt here, the habit. Like it's not...
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When I wake up, I'm going to try to eat better. Or it's not,
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when I go to my car, I'm going to walk.
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It's got to be very specific so that it's something you can look towards every time.
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And so I think I've talked about this in the past.
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My dad has a sticky note on his mirror.
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And it says, I think, do 20 push-ups or 10. I can't remember how many push-ups.
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But it says, whatever, push-ups.
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Okay. And so my dad does push-ups every night. He takes his shower at night.
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And so he does push-ups every night before he gets in the shower and he has
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a set amount of push-ups. Okay.
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And so this could be the same. A lot of my ladies who have wanted to get more
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like movement in their day, but don't necessarily want to go to the gym quite yet.
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They have done, after I stand up in the bathroom, I will do five squats or I will do 10 squats. Okay.
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Because like, you know, eventually you're going to be going to the bathroom.
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And so when you stand up, you know, oh, I better squat it back down five more
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times or whatever it is. Okay.
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So again, I'm driving that home, but I've seen so many habit stacks that are
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a little too vague and that makes it easier to kind of fall off the wagon, okay?
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And so the next thing to really remember here is to think about the time and
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the place that this habit stack would take place, okay?
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So for instance, like if you're somebody who's really wanting to do your devotion every day,
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you know, maybe your habit stack would look like, before I drink my coffee,
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I'm gonna, you know, read one page in my devotion, okay?
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But think about your mornings and what's going on in your household before you drink your coffee.
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Okay, like are your kids rushing around trying to get ready for school?
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Is it like absolute chaos, lunches are being packed, carpool loading up?
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Like is it is is that really feasible for you to sit down and focus in on your
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devotion before you sit down and have your coffee?
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You know, so it might need to be a different a different
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time of the day that that if you're if
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you're home after your kids go to school maybe you know after the
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kids walk out the door to get to the bus
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or whatever I will read one page of my devotion like that might be a little
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more feasible for you and also thinking about if we go back to the water habit
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stack like before I turn on a show at night with my husband,
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I will drink 20 ounces of water.
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Since you don't want that to be your habit stack because...
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Then you're going to be peeing all night long. Like that's going to suck and
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you're not going to want to stick to that habit stack.
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You know, so really thinking about the time and the place and how that might
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affect you realistically.
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Because again, the point of habit stacking is not to suffer through and try
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to, you know, get healthier.
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It should not be viewed as suffering. It should be something that you can easily
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do that can pair well with something you already easily do and will make you
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feel accomplished at the end of it all, okay?
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And so, you know, after that, like, first of all, only do like one or two habit stacks at a time.
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Like, I would not recommend doing like 20 habit stacks because you're not going to remember.
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You're not going to remember them all, you know? And so it's really important
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to focus in on one or two specific ones.
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And I tell my girls, like, make it weeks at a time that you've done this one habit stack.
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And it becomes a no-brainer to you before you move on to another one, okay?
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This is not battle of the habit stacks. How many can we fit in, okay?
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It is really trying to, remember, adopt these habits that you really want to
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have that you just can't seem to grasp otherwise, okay?
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It's not, you know, nobody's getting a medal for however many complicated than,
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you know, however many habit stacks that they can put together, okay?
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The point is longevity and making it something that becomes mindless.
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Now drinking my water before my coffee is legitimately mindless for me, okay?
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And so that's the point, right? So some other ideas that I saw that I really
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thought were cool was like, Like when I see a set of stairs,
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I can take them instead of using an elevator.
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Like that's an easy one where you can, you know, it's just something you start
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to identify. You start to notice stairs, you know.
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Or when I serve myself a meal, I will always put my veggies on my plate first.
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Okay. And so then if you, let's say you do this.
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Let's say you have been drinking your 20 ounces of water before you have your
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coffee for weeks upon weeks. Or let's say you've been taking the stairs instead
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of the elevator for weeks upon weeks.
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Or you've been serving yourself veggies first, okay, forever, for a long enough time.
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From there, you can actually stack on top of that stack, okay?
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So you can take it a little bit further. Again, keeping it highly specific and
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very immediately, you know, able to be done.
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But so you could say when I serve myself a meal, I will put veggies on my plate first.
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Then when I sit down to eat my meal, I will eat my veggies first.
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Okay, that would be your second stack. And then you could do that for a little while.
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And then, you know, if you stick to that for several weeks, you could say,
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all right, now that I've started serving my veggies first and eating my veggies
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first, now after I eat my vegetables, I will put my fork down and assess my hunger level.
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Okay. Do you see how this evolves into eating less, into eating healthier?
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That is a habit stack that, yes,
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you started with just weeks of putting vegetables on your plate first.
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Okay. And that was hard enough because you wanted to go to, you know,
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all the fatty side dishes or whatever first.
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But your first big accomplishment was you started putting those vegetables on
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and kind of filling up that plate with vegetables first, that high fiber,
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low calorie, really good for you, lots of, you know, vitamins and minerals on your plate.
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And then as it went on, then you started to eat the vegetables first. Okay.
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It wasn't just putting the vegetables on it first. You were eating the vegetables first.
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And then after weeks go on, you're eating your veggies first.
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And then you're thinking, okay, I ate my vegetables.
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All my vegetables are gone off this plate. Now let me put down my fork and really
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get in tune with my stomach.
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Am I starving? Do I need to finish the roll?
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Do I need to go back for seconds of the steak and gravy or whatever?
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Like really assessing your hunger levels so that eventually that turns into
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eating less and eating more of a healthy and well-balanced meal when you're serving yourself food.
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Okay, so another option of stacking on top of the stack is when I see a set
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of stairs, I will take them instead of the elevator.
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Okay, so you've been doing that, girl. Your legs are feeling toned.
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You've been taking them stairs for a while now.
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You can stack on that with after I get up the stairs, I will do five squats.
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I mean, can y'all imagine? Like if I worked in a building with stairs and I
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was taking them every day and doing five squats when I got to the top,
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and then imagine if you had to like take the stairs several times a day because
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like your boss was downstairs or upstairs. I mean, imagine that.
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Y'all booty and your legs would be...
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Be getting tight. It would be, you would be feeling some different type of way
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about your legs and your booty and your exercise level, right?
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So, so, okay, then you stack. After you, after you get up the stairs,
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instead of taking the elevator, you're going to do five squats every time, okay?
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Again, keeping in mind time and place. If the stairs are wide open in front
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of all your co-workers' glass windows, might want to, might want to stack it
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with something different, but then you can stack it even further.
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After I finish my five squats, I will go to my desk and drink five ounces of water.
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Okay. So then you are literally taking the stairs, doing a few squats at the
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top of the stairs, and then drinking water.
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You are basically the queen of health, you know, with just that one habit stack
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that you built on over, you know, a couple months time. Okay.
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And so, yeah, this is like little, it sounds like little things,
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but do you see, first of all, not only are you clearly making positive changes
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in your life, but you're also telling yourself,
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I'm going to do this, and then you're doing it. You're following through.
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So you're building your own self-confidence along the way, which I think is
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the most important part of all of this by saying like,
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I'm going to make an effort to get healthier
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and this is how and then actually following through
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with the how because so many of us get so down and out when we can't follow
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through and we get all in our heads and it just makes it nasty nasty in there
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all right and then the last one that I thought would be a good stack okay is
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like stack upon stack like mine when I brew my coffee I will drink 20 ounces of water.
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So, or before I drink my coffee, I will drink 20 ounces of water.
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Okay. And then after I drink my water, I will read one, at least one page in my devotion.
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Okay. So after a few weeks of drinking your water before your coffee,
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then you can say, after I drink my
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water, I'm going to drink a page in my devotion. Again, if time and place,
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warrant this. And then after a few weeks of that, it's after I do my devotion,
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I will walk for 10 minutes around the block.
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So you've done, had your water, gotten some time with Jesus and moved your body.
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Okay. All with this one stack. And I will say this one is, is pretty close to me.
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What I do, I drink my water and then I drink my coffee.
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While I'm drinking my coffee, I'm reading my devotion.
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It is like a trickle effect. And then after I read my devotion,
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I get ready for work because, you know, I'm walking.
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I can't do that first thing in the morning, unfortunately, most mornings.
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But I'm getting ready for work.
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So it's kind of become my routine, if you will.
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So I start my morning feeling like I'm getting a good jump on my hydration for
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the day and a good jump on my Jesus for the day.
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Okay. And so I know it sounds good to like stack all of these and,
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you know, be the fitness queen doing the squats and drinking the water at the
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top of the stairs or whatever.
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But I do encourage you to remember one at a time, several weeks of this, trying not to forget.
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Also keeping in mind that like the, so some stacks can include things like on my drive to work.
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A lot of my, a lot of my ladies do this actually. on my drive to work,
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I'll drink my, you know, a whole bottle of water or whatever it is.
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And just remember like, okay, so on the days you don't drive to work,
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like, are we, are, are those days just going to be forgotten about, which is fine.
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Okay. That's fine. If you just, it's only going to be on the way to work or
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only going to be the days you drive carpool or, you know, only when you see the stairs or whatever.
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And so that, that's fine. And so just keeping that in mind and not trying to like say, Bye.
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On my drive to work, on Monday through Thursday, I'm going to drink water.
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But then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I'm going to drink water when I do this.
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And then like, don't change it up. Don't make it complicated.
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Just start as easy breezy as you can. And you can always work up from there, right?
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Again, there is no metal given for the complex, complicated habit stackers out there.
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It is, the metal is given to the ones who actually stick to it.
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So yeah, I just, this concept is something I love.
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And if you've ever been with me, or if you are with me right now,
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you know, I harp on this because I really believe in it.
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And I mean, it's evident in my life and a lot of lives around me.
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And so yeah, I encourage you try your habit stack and let me know,
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let me know what you're stacking.
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I would love to help keep you accountable. I would love to just kind of know
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a lot of my ladies come up with the greatest ideas. And so I would love to hear yours.
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All right, until next time, I hope y'all have a wonderful week. Bye.
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Thank you for listening to today's episode of Say Grace Podcast.
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Music.
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If you enjoyed it, it would mean the world to me if you left me a five-star review.
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Also, make sure to follow the show so you don't miss another episode.
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Plus, if you're interested in learning more about losing weight and eating the foods you love.
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Music.