In recent years, I've spent a lot of time talking about habit change on my various social media platforms. As boring and simple as it sounds, habit change really is the biggest piece of the puzzle for reaching and maintaining your weight loss and fitness goals. But this simple, yet highly effective nutrition concept I'm going to chat about today has been a total game changer when it comes to reaching your weight loss goals once and for all. This nutrition concept could change your life, and it's called habit stacking, and it's been an incredible approach I've used with my coaching clients in the Forever Fit Formula. I can give you everything you "need" to do in order to reach your goals on a shiny piece of paper that will guarantee you get results; I can tell you exactly what foods to eat to nail your macros, and I could program you the most effective workout guide to get you strong and build an insane amount of muscle.
But that scenario only plays out perfectly, if it's followed perfectly. And unfortunately, that doesn't consider this thing called life. The great news is, with flexible dieting, realistic goal setting, habit stacking, and one on one support with me, your goals are still possible while allowing you to still live life! Let's chat a bit about habits...all habits (good and not so good) form from repetition, but they need a consistent context and lots of practice. Habit stacking involves attaching - and sometimes adding - new behaviors to existing behaviors. The existing behavior serves as the foundation because it provides stability and confidence that the new behavior will actually happen.
From there, we have a foundation, as well as new steps (or habits) to build on.
For example: Let's say your new habit goal is to drink more water. You really want to aim for a gallon/day but you currently only drink about 60 oz on a good day. Instead of white knuckling your way through trying to go from 60 to 128 oz. a day of water, we habit stack and meet you where you're at. Perhaps for one week, your goal is to aim for 80 oz. When the 80 oz is met on a consistent basis for an appropriate amount of time, you can try adding 20 more oz. to ultimately get you to your end goal of 128 ounces. Another way we can habit stack is by taking something currently do on a daily basis and attaching a new or desired behavior to the things you’re already doing: This dialogue could look like: "Before [fill in the blank-meaning the existing behavior], I will [new behavior].”
To help with the goal of drinking more water, this could look like: "Before I drink my cup of coffee in the morning, I will drink 16 oz of water." Your current habit of drinking coffee in the morning is met with an additional behavior/habit that helps you work towards your bigger goal. This is a skill that will take time, repetition and practice but I promise it's worth it!
Hope this helps!