How to Make That Healthy Habit Stick
Even if you exercise regularly, eat a relatively healthy diet, and pay attention to good hydration, there’s usually that one healthy habit you wish you had that just hasn’t stuck. Maybe you’re trying to eat more servings of vegetables, but you just don’t make it happen every day. Maybe there’s that one exercise that’ll push your workout the extra mile, but at the end of your usual routine, you’re done for the day. Today, we’ll talk about some tips that turn that healthy habit into a reality.
Start with your goals. To make a habit stick, you need a reason for the habit in the first place. Sometimes, they are obvious: “I need to add more weight training because it will build the muscle I need to compete.” Other times it’s less obvious, and you need to be creative to come up with a clear reason why you want to incorporate that habit into your life. Once you have the reason, write it down as a goal so you remember and can refer to it if needed. Staying motivated is tough (we talk about strategies for staying motivated here), so having a plan to turn your goals into habits makes it easier to stick with them.
Recognize the process. Both good and bad habits have the same three-step process. First, there’s a cue that tells you to take that action. Next, you take that action. Finally, you get a reward. We’ll break down the steps next, but here’s a basic example: you feel tired or hungry (or even bored), and that signals that you want to eat (step 1). You grab a snack out of the fridge and eat it (step 2). You get that reward, whether it’s simply feeling satiated, perking up and feeling more energetic, or just enjoying the flavor of the food (step 3).
➢ Step 1 – curate that cue. Getting started on a new healthy habit means building a cue, some sort of reminder to do the action that didn’t exist before. We’ll use adding more vegetable servings as an example. What will signal you to get those extra servings? Maybe it’s reminders on your phone throughout the day. Maybe it’s an item on a meal planning checklist. Whatever you use, make it something that will work for you to make you think about the action you want to build as a new habit.
➢ Step 2 – make it easy to take that action. The trick here is advanced planning to make it harder to skip your new habit than to do it. Remove obstacles to make the new habit easy and add obstacles that make it harder NOT to take that action. We’ll use our vegetable servings habit again. Take some time every couple of days to chop vegetables in advance. Store them ready-to-cook in the fridge and include some on-the-go options like raw carrots divided into serving sizes and ready to go. Tempted to just throw sauce on that pasta? When veggies are chopped and ready, they’re easy to add. Only choose recipes that work well with added vegetables and have ingredients for them on hand. This works for any habit you want to instill. Just consider all the obstacles that stand in your way and remove them systematically, then build obstacles to make it harder not to do that habit.
➢ Step 3 – understand that reward. Rewards are very personal, so they’re different for everybody. Some rewards avoid unpleasant things, others seek out ways to feel good. Rewards can even change over time. One woman went on a whole-foods diet to lose weight, but found it significantly reduced her chronic migraines. The diet was strict and weight loss was slow, but being migraine-free was such a great reward that she stuck with her new diet. Be aware of the rewards you get for good, healthy habits and find ways to make them better. In our veggie servings example, the rewards can be feeling better, being sick less often, and/or performing better in work and in play.
Remember that the process also works for unhealthy habits, so if there’s something you want to change, analyze the cues, actions, and rewards and make it harder to make those negative choices.
We all need more healthy habits in our lives. One of these is staying hydrated so we can perform our best in the sport we love. That’s why we created TotalFit Premium Water™, the electrolyte-enhanced, purified, and pH balanced performance water that’s micro-clustered for optimal absorption and superior hydration. Get your case of TotalFit Premium Water™ and experience the difference of superior hydration for yourself. You can find TotalFit online or find a store near you today. For fun, money-saving promotions, fitness tips and more, text “totalfit” to 95577 and BE FIT today!









