Latest / Chub Chat With Mary / Habit Stacking
Transcript
- mary: This is episode three. Habit stacking make healthier habits easier. Don't fall into the all or nothing trap. Before we talk about building habits, there's another mindset that can get in the way. All or nothing thinking. Have you ever said I ate dessert so I ruined my diet? I missed my walk, so I might as well stop. Come on. I had fast food today, so I'll start again Monday. Well, you know, never Monday never comes. Didn't drink enough water, so today doesn't count. I've definitely had those thoughts. But healthy living isn't all or nothing. Tess missing one day isn't failure. Eating one unhealthy meal doesn't erase everything else you've done. Not getting your walk in today doesn't mean you have to wait until next Monday. You can simply continue with your next choice. Don't wait for Monday. Your next choice is your reset. And once we get out of that all or nothing mindset, we can start making healthy habits. Much easier to stick with. Are you making your habits too difficult? One mistake we make is trying to do too much too soon. Set these huge goals and then wonder why we can't stick with them. Has that ever happened to you? I mean instead of going to walk for an hour every day, start with I'm going to walk for five minutes and instead of I'm going to completely change my diet. Start with going to add protein to breakfast or a fruit. Whatever you want. And here's the great thing about habit stacking. You don't have to completely change your life. You just attach a new habit to something you already do. For example, if you make coffee every morning, use that as your reminder to drink a glass of water. And if you're thinking, wait, I have to remember to drink water? No, yes. Apparently being an adult comes with homework. Make the ha habit almost ridiculously easy. Because the goal isn't to prove how much willpower you have. The goal is to build consistency and you're becoming the person who walks. You're becoming the person who drinks water. You're becoming the person who takes care of yourself. That brings us to something we can't ignore. What happens when motivation disappears? Motivation is great on january first, right? But what happens on January 17th when it's freezing outside? You're tired, you're busy, and you don't feel like doing anything. That's where habits matter. You don't want your healthy choices to depend on feeling motivated every single day. So instead of asking, how can I stay motivated? Ask yourself, what can I make automatic so I don't have to negotiate with myself? Because eventually you won't want to think about it. You'll just do it. And if you want to make something automatic, there's a new there's another tool that can help stop depending on willpower. Sometimes we don't need more willpower. We need a better setup. Sometimes changing our environment is easier than trying to change ourselves. If you want to drink more water, keep a water bottle beside you and keep it where you can see it. Fill it before you need it. If you want to walk, put your walk and choose by the door. If you want to eat more fruit or vegetables, keep fruit and vegetables where you can see it. Easy. Easy peasy. If you're trying to eat fewer snacks, don't keep huge amounts sitting directly in front of you. I I can't have that in front of me. Snacks. Make the healthy choice easier to see and easier to do. All that we talked about making habits easier. Let's take a look at the habits you're already doing. without even thinking about them. So how do we actually make a new healthy habit stick? One of my favorite strategies is called habit stacking. Habit stacking just means attaching a new habit to something you already do every day. Habit is simply something you do so often that it becomes automatic. Like you don't wake up every morning and think Okay, I need to remember to brush my teeth. You just do it. Just get up and brush your teeth. Echo sa that's exactly what we want with healthy behaviors. Instead of relying on yourself to remember a brand new habit, attach to something that's already part of your routine. Easy. For example, after your morning coffee, say I'll drink a glass of water. After dinner, I'll take a five minute walk. Before bed, I'll write down tomorrow's healthy plan. Come on, this stuff is easy. The trick isn't relying on your memory. It's attaching the new habit to something you already do automatically. And you can track your habits too. Why? Because tracking creates awareness. Start seeing your patterns, build consistency. Small daily wins add up. Motivates you, seeing your progress, feels good. Take some of the focus off the scale. You can see the healthy actions you're actually doing. If you've spent years focusing on diets, calories, or the number on the scale, tracking your habits gives you something else to focus on. Your behaviors. Because your health isn't built by one perfect day. It's built by the little things you do over and over again. Most of us think we need to completely overhaul our lives to get healthy. That's often what gets us into trouble. Yes. Definitely. Try to change everything at once. Get overwhelmed and eventually quit. Instead, start small. Choose one healthy habit. Attach it to something you already do. Repeat it. Then let those small habits add up. And honestly, if you can remember to check your phone forty seven times a day, you can probably remember one healthy habit. The goal isn't to create a perfect routine overnight. It's to make healthy choices so familiar that eventually they become part of who you are. Drinking water. Have you ever done a hat? Have you ever done a habit audit? A habit audit is simply looking at what you do automatically from time you wake up until you go to bed. No, you can You can ask yourself, what's a habit I want to keep? Or what's a habit I want to change? What's a habit I want to add? See, these are simple. What existing routine could I attach my new habit to? Like, for example, after I brush my teeth, I will drink a glass of water. After dinner, I will walk for four five minutes. When I sit down to watch TV, I will fill my water bottle first. You're not trying to completely redesign your life. You're taking something. You already do in attaching a small, healthy habit to it. Speaking of replacing habits, let me tell you about one of the biggest habits I changed. My Diet Coke habit. I was drinking five twelve ounce cans and two sixteen ounce bottles of Diet Coke daily. In one day. And it wasn't just a drink, it had become Automatic. I finish one and reach for another. And I love cracking open that can and hearing those bubbles. You know, that little ps had me trained. So instead of simply telling myself you can't have Diet Coke anymore, I decided to replace the habit with water. And let me tell you, I was not a big water fan. The first week was tough and I cut down to five cans a day. But because I was so used to reaching for another one After I finished those five, I'd still automatically reach for another. My brain was basically saying, Okay, verse number six. Weeks two and three were even tougher. I was dealing with caffeine headache, caffeine withdrawal. I was trying to replace Diet Coke with water, which wasn't exactly my favorite drink at the time. There were definitely moments when I thought maybe I should just give up on this new habit of drinking water. Then I reminded myself why I started. Check how much money I was spending on Diet Coke. I realized I could save about one thousand dollars a year. I thought, okay, I could drink some more water for that. By weeks four and five I was still adjusting, but I was getting more comfortable drinking water. By week six things were getting much easier. Do I ever think about Diet Coke? Absolutely. Especially when I'm sitting next to someone drinking a Diet Coke. There's a big difference now. I'm no longer automatically reaching for one. I replaced that habit with drinking water. And one of the things I love most is that I don't have those caffeine headaches anymore. God, that was horrible. And I'm s saving that $1,000. I that's really the point of all this. You know, you don't have to change everything at once. You don't have to be perfect. Don't have to wait for Monday. You don't need endless motivation and you don't necessarily need more willpower. Sometimes you just to make sometimes you just need to make the habit smaller. Make your environment work for you. And replace an old habit with a better option. Before we wrap up, let's talk about some of the things that might be going through your mind. When you try to build a new habit. What if I miss a day? You start again the next day. No punishment. No guilt. Just continue. What if I don't feel motivated? Make the habit smaller. What if I start and quit? Look at why you quit instead of calling yourself a failure. Maybe the habit was too big. Maybe the timing wasn't right. Maybe you need a different approach. And what if my family doesn't support me? Choose a healthy habit that you can control yourself. What if I had a bad week? Bad week doesn't have to become a bad month. What if five minutes doesn't seem like enough? But five minutes is still more than zero. Sometimes five minutes becomes ten, twenty. Goal isn't to do everything perfectly. Goal is to keep coming back. After all these years of trying to get healthier, these are some of the lessons I've learned. There's don't have to change everything at once. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to wait until Monday. Don't have to follow another complicated diet. Small changes really do matter. A habit that fits your life is more useful than a perfect plan. You can't maintain. Progress can be boring, and that's okay. Repetition is more important than intensity. Probably the biggest lesson I've learned is this. I spent decades thinking I needed to find the right diet. I think I need to learn how to build a life I can actually live. And maybe that's what healthy living is really about. Not finding a perfect diet, not having perfect days, not starting every other Monday, building habits and routines that fit into your real life. So you can actually keep doing them. Here's your sh chub chat challenge. What's your diet code? What's one habit you know isn't helping you but you keep going back to? Don't try to change ten things this week. Pick one. Ask yourself, what can I replace it with? Then make that new habit ridiculously easy because healthy living isn't about becoming perfect. It's about becoming a little healthier with your next choice. And that's your jump chat challenge for the week. Now I want to hear from you. What did you think about today's episode? Did anything we talked about hit home for you? And please share this episode with a friend who might need to hear it too. And if there's a health topic you want me to chat about, let me know. I'm always looking for ideas for future episodes. And remember, you don't have to do this alone. If you need an accountability partner, reach out and let me know. Leave a comment on my website, chubchat wm.riverside.com. Or email at chubchat.26 at gmail.com and have a healthy week. And I'll see you next time on chub Chat for episode four. Healthy Living on a Budget. What it actually costs.