Have You Achieved Some Results Before With Your Health & Fitness Only To Have Reverted Back To Where You Started Or Worse? Would You Love To Know How You Can Avoid That Ever Happening Again?
People know what they want to achieve, setting goals is the easy part. The issue is that they don’t know what they need to do to actually achieve their goals. Most people are only outcome focused without understating or addressing the habits or behaviours that got them their in the first place.
Think of it this way, if you’re 10 kilos overweight, those 10 kilos are actually a results of behaviours, unless you change your behaviours you cannot improve or lose that weight.
What are outcomes?
Essential they are goals. Like losing 10 kilos of body fat, dropping two dress sizes, increasing lean muscle mass by 5kg in 12 months etc…
Another practical example of this would be having a goal like “I want to save 1 million dollars in the next 12 months”. Having the goal or outcome defined is very important, but a plan without a strategy to actually achieve the goal makes the plan useless.
What are habits?
Habits are the things you can do everyday. Once a habit is ingrained into you, it is actually very hard to break. Habits become behaviours. Behaviours are what make you who you are.
So, back to our practical example of saving 1 million dollars in a year, to give any plan a real chance of becoming a reality, we would need to create some new habits and make them your new behaviours.
Some examples would be to: stop gambling if you’re a gambler, start saving $2,740.00 a day for the next 365 days into a seperate bank account, have cheaper holidays this year if you need to sacrifice a little to hit that savings target, increase productivity in your business to increase revenue if you need to earn more etc…
As coaches, our real job is to influence peoples behaviours. If we can do that, then you will inevitably achieve you goals and SMASH your targets.
The main thing a good coach will start to give you is new behaviour goals. Behaviours and habits are what will create the outcome for you. Without defining these new habits that you must do daily, it will be impossible to achieve any significant long-term changes.
“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” – Albert Einstein
The 1 Step Process
With habit change, the key is not attempting too many changes at once. This will decrease your chances of having any of these new habits actually stick! If we gave you 10 new things to focus on in the same week, the chances of that you may become overwhelmed and give up all together or you may cope for some time but the chances of long-term change and this new habits becoming ingrained behaviours would be low.
Less is more in this case of habit change. Tackle one habit at a time to focus on each one properly, do this for the whole week or 7 days. This will give you the ability to really nail the new habit and succeed at creating a new behaviour which will become part of your everyday routine forever.
Too much change overwhelms peoples, it may create more stress for you too which may cause you to give up before you have even started, keeping it simple tis the best approach. No one likes to fail. So, reduce the chances of failure by keeping it simple. One change at a time.
At Miyagi, we have change 1000’s of peoples lives, we did this with a simple 12 week approach to habit change…
Week 1 – Sunday Ritual Part 1!
This is the ritual of preparing on a Sunday for the week ahead. In week one, start by booking your training times into your diary in advance. This is important to help you get set up for a new routine with your coach.
Week 2 – Sunday Ritual Part 2!
In part two of the Sunday ritual, start grocery shopping on a Sunday and start cooking and meal preparation in advance for the week.
Doing all this sets you up nicely and increases your chances of actually sticking to your meal plan and hitting your targets. Having a shopping list will also save you money and stop you from buying things that will lead you astray.
Week 3 – Post Dinner Walk! Or Incidental Exercise
Not only do we need to train more in the gym, we need to move more in life. Start by every night after dinner going for a low to moderate intensity walk for 30 minutes. This will increase your incidental exercise and get you stimulating your metabolism and digestive system before bed to help you digest your dinner.
This is also much better than sitting on the couch for the waistline and the blood sugar. Win-win.
Week 4 – Writing Down Their Goals Everyday!
A major part of achieving goals is to actually keep those goals at the forefront of your mind. Keep your eye on the prize so to speak. Write down your: life, fitness and health related goals every morning for the next week, every day first thing in the morning.
This concept is also called auto-suggestion.
Auto-suggestion deals with the subconscious part of the brain. By constantly having your goals in front off you, the sub-conscious part of your brain starts to believe that this thing(s) you’re focusing on is already happening and real or an actual reality. This will increase the likelihood of you adopting the behaviours necessary to reach those goals.
This will ensure you keep doing the little things everyday that are needed to keep pushing you on towards your goals.
Week 5 – Reducing Alcohol!
For most adults, their problem with their weight is not so much related to what they are eating as such, but more due to what they are drinking! Drinking alcohol is a great way to socialise with our friends, the problem is in the quantities!
Take a honest look at the amount of alcohol that you’re drinking everyday and do a bit of a lifestyle stocktake. Most often you will be drinking more than you thought!
It’s a lot easier too to over consume calories by drinking them as oppose to eating them. In addition, when we drink too much alcohol, most often we end up dehydrated, hung-over and tired due to reduced amounts of quality and restorative sleep.
Sleep deprivation drives up and increases the hormones in our body responsible for hunger signalling and will most likely encourage us to consume and choose foods that are higher in refined sugars and saturated fats… Energy dense foods.
So, by minimising your drinking to two standard drinks on nights out with lots of water in between is the goal for you this week.
Week 6 – Reducing Sugar!
Sugar is hidden in a lot of the foods and drinks that we consume these days. The problem with this is that is makes that food or drink more energy dense.
Energy consumed that is not needed or utilised by the body will inevitably get stored as excess body fat. Sugar is also just empty calories. It has no real nutritional value. It is energy dense and nutrient sparse. Meaning no real value for your body and cells but with all the calories.
The habit for this week is to reduce sugar! Start looking at foods, drinks, sauces that you use in your cooking etc… that are high in sugar. That’s their task this week.
Look for alternatives to these products that will decrease the amount of total energy they’re consuming for that day. If for some reason they need some sweetness added to their food, there are natural alternatives that you can use to add some flavour in to your foods without adding the empty calories.
Week 7 – Increasing Sleep!
Sleep deprivation is one of those real silent killers. They know they’re supposed to get seven to nine hours of sleep a night, but sometimes, they stay up for a night out on the town, to finish a project at work, or even just to watch Law & Order reruns. We get it—we’ve all been there, and a late night here and there won’t have any lasting effects beyond the fatigue you feel the next day.
It’s when they skimp on sleep night after night that it becomes a real problem for them. Though they may think their five-hours-a-night habit is nothing to worry about, chronic sleep deprivation has been tied to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, reduced sex drive, decreased productivity at work, and depression.
The habit for you this week will be to set up a new pre sleep routine schedule and increase your amount of sleep to acceptable levels. Some handy tips to help you achieve that are:
Blacking out their room
Having your room as dark as possible is ideal to help your body really go into that deep state of sleep that increases your sleep quality and your bodies ability to recover from the day.
Keeping your phone out of your bedroom
This will reduce the likelihood of you checking your phone just before bedtime or the need to use your smart phone as your alarm clock. The smart phone screen emits a type of light that actually speeds up your brain and wakes you up by stimulating cortisol which is a stress hormone.
This will do the opposite of what should be going on at bedtime which is winding down and getting ready to rest.
Your habit for the week is to keep your phone in another part of your house and out of the bedroom.
Journalling before bed
Doing this allows you to empty your head of thoughts before bed. Often the reason why people can’t sleep is because they have unsettled matters in their brain from the day, and until they can settle or deal with these matters their brains will be busy trying to find a solution.
Now, you may not be able to solve the problem(s), but writing them down will allow you to know that that task or problem wont be forgotten about and can then be dealt with tomorrow.
Don’t drink fluids before bed
Drinking too much so close to bedtime will inevitably lead to multiple sleep disruptions during the night to go to the toilet. Breaking your sleep patterns like this will reduce the amount of quality restorative sleep they get.
Your habit for the week is to drink less fluids with dinner and keeping fluid intake in the afternoon to a minimum if possible.
Don’t consume caffeine after lunchtime
Caffeine is obviously a stimulant. Stimulants drive up the release of cortisol the stress hormone which keeps you fired up. Having caffeine after lunch may disturb your sleep quality.
Caffeine has a half life of approximately 6 hours. Meaning that if you consume a shot of coffee at 2pm which has approximately 60mg of caffeine in it, at 8pm that night you will still have 30mg of caffeine in your bloodstream…
Habit for the week here is to not have coffee after midday. This will increase the quality of their sleep at night by avoiding them still being amped up at bedtime.
Exercise earlier in the day if possible
Training also stimulates the body and drives up stress hormones. This is great in some ways but not so great if done too close to bedtime for most people.
The habit for the week for you here is to do their strenuous exercise earlier in the day if possible and up to lunch time. This will give your body ample time to unwind and come back down to balance.
Week 8 – Decreasing Stress!
Stress is something that we cannot totally avoid, we’re humans living in a world that stresses us out! But, this stress can also be very detrimental to all our bodies and health.
Emotional stress drives up stress hormones in the body which ultimately also reduces our ability to be lean and healthy.
Apart from that, it reeks havoc on our minds and our ability to be productive in life, present and function optimally.
Try meditation. Nothing fancy. We just ask you to go into a quiet room, start with 5 minutes of deep, slow and purposeful breathing over and over for 5 minutes.
If you need some help with this, there are many apps these days that can help with this.
The habit for the week here is to schedule this in to your daily routine every day this week.
Week 9 – Lunchtime Walk!
They say sitting is now considered to be the new smoking! Most of our clients are office workers that sit for large periods of the day.
This sedentary job increases your risk factor for cardiovascular disease. Standing up every hour whilst you work is a great small habit to introduce to disturb metabolism and get their blood circulating.
The habit for this week is a short 20 – 30 minute walk at lunch time.
You don’t even have to sweat it up, just walk around the block. The real purpose is top get some fresh air, some vitamin D and increase your levels of incidental exercise for the day.
Week 10 – Increase Your Vegetables!
Vegetables are nutrient dense and calorie sparse, the opposite of sugar! Meaning they have lots of vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients which our cells love. They are also high in fibre to keep us regular. Fibre will increase our feeling of satiety or fullness and are likely to help us eat less.
Your body will love you for eating more vegetables. It’s an all over win-win.
The habit here for the week is to look at your current diet and see where you could add another serve. Or could they add more variety? More colours?
Week 11 – Introduce Basic Vitamins / supplements!
Most people wouldn’t be eating a well balanced diet that would ensure that their bodies have everything that it needs to function optimally. In these cases, some basic vitamins could help fill in the gaps.
The only basic things here we are able to recommend based on our scope of practice, are (unless otherwise advised by their doctor):
- Basic multivitamins
- Fish oil tablets
- Zinc / Magnesium
- Creatine supplement
- Protein powder
- Caffeine
The habit here for the week is to start taking some basics supplements to top up on anything that you may be missing out on through your diet to have you at your peak performance.
Week 12 – Get more social support!
Our ability to build new habits and cement them into our lives is highly tied into who we hang out with. Now, I am not saying here to ask the client to ditch their unhealthy fat friends. What we would ask you here is to start to:
- Be more active on the Miyagi V.I.P. page
- Commit to goals by posting them publicly
- Seek out new friends that they can commit to extra exercise with
- Try to nurture new friendships with people that are already fit and healthy
It’s all about locking health and fitness and all these new habits into our lives. We are who we surround ourselves with. Plain and simple.
The habit here for the week is for you to pick one of these tasks for the week and make that their new habit.
At Miyagi we LOVE helping people CHANGE THEIR LIVES! For more information on how we can help you, visit www.miyagi.fitness today and APPLY to be coached by one of our expert coaches.
