by Ruth
Many people make new year’s resolutions—This year I vow to exercise every day, eat right, and lose weight!
Yet, year after year, my new year’s resolutions fail. Why?
In my book (Are Your Health and Finances Linked? A Christian Entrepreneur’s Quest; released in 12/2022, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BQ5JXFYY), I talked about why it’s so tough to establish a daily exercise habit. Here is an excerpt from the book.
In my early forties, an annual physical checkup revealed I had high cholesterol and that my HbA1c (a measure of average blood glucose sugar levels for the last two to three months) trended high.
My doctor advised me to change my eating habit and lose weight.
If I didn’t change, soon the combined genetic predispositions of high cholesterol and diabetes would wreck my health. My father died young, so I didn’t know whether he’d developed hyperlipidemia. But all my uncles and aunts suffered dire consequences such as stroke or heart attack from high cholesterol. On my mother’s side, complications associated with obesity and diabetes killed my grandfather and one of her siblings. My mom was also overweight and diabetic. Eventually, she passed away from a diabetes-induced stroke.
Yet, what could I do to change my diet and start exercising?
As a scientist with a PhD in biochemistry, I approach everything by first conducting thorough research. I tried to learn as much as I could about diet and exercise and found something interesting: Most people fail because they don’t realize that the only way to eat right and exercise consistently is to turn them into habits. For example, once you form the habit of exercise, and it becomes like brushing your teeth in the morning, you’ll have a better chance of adhering to it.
So, I delved deeper into the subject of how to form a habit.
Some of you may have heard about the 21-day habit formation formula. However, according to Dr. Phillippa Lally, a health psychology researcher at University College London, a new habit may take over two months to take shape and more than eight months to become fully formed.
No wonder it’s so challenging for us to establish an exercise routine.
In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg attributes the formation of habits to a psychological pattern called the “habit loop”—the trigger (or cue), the routine, and the reward.
Studies have shown that an effective way to shift a habit is to discover and keep your old cue and reward and change only the routine.
From my personal experiences, I concur with that approach.
First, I dissected my daily routine.
For years, I have been following the No-B-No-B (No-Bible-No-Breakfast) practice for my daily devotion. Here is the cue-routine-reward loop associated with that habit.
Cue: My alarm goes off at 6 a.m.
Routine: I get up, brush my teeth, wash my face, and then do my morning devotion.
Reward: I’m mentally calm and prepared to start a new day. Also, now I get to eat my breakfast.
What should I do to modify my routine and keep the same cue and reward?
Now, please note another word of caution: DO NOT try to change your routine all at once. Instead, take baby steps to insert small, achievable activities into that routine. Otherwise, you’re doomed to fail.
After some consideration, I added ten simple sit-ups following my prayer.
Good gracious, not as easy as I thought!
In my hurry to get to breakfast and dash out of the door for work, I had to force myself to get it done. As time went by, the new mini-habit stuck, and I added additional stretch exercises and even foot massage. In all, I only added ten more minutes to my routine. I have been doing this for 20+ years and truly benefit from my habitual morning exercise.
Using the same approach, later I added twenty more minutes of a good cardiovascular workout into my afternoon “habit loop,” including jumping rope, stretching, and weight-lifting.
During the past 20+ years, I keep my daily exercise routine and maintain my body mass index in the healthy normal range. I’m in my late sixties but feel more energetic than when I was in my forties.
