A Simple 5-Step Plan to Create Healthy Habits

Healthy Habits At a Glance

• Find motivation to get healthier
• Make a list of all the changes you need to make
• Set priorities to help you decide where to start
• Commit to one specific change at a time and make that change easy
• Personify bad habits and treat them (not yourself) as your adversary

Change sucks. How come healthy habits are so hard to start and maintain? Even when I made healthy changes in the past, I couldn’t stick with them. I didn’t last a month with most of them. Admittedly, I’m not very disciplined, nor do I have much will power. But finally, at the ripe old age of 63, I figured out a 5-Step Plan that has enabled me to live a much healthier lifestyle.

As soon as a change becomes inconvenient, causes pain, or fails to produce results quickly enough, many of us abandon it. At least that’s what happened to me over and over again. I tried what the health gurus recommended but never stuck with any of them for more than a month or two.

Do Something to Create Healthy Habits

My approach to better health is different from most of the diets or exercise programs you see advertised. They promise quick results. I don’t. Instead, I help you focus on small changes until they become healthy habits or even something you look forward to. It’s just one or two small changes at a time. Below is an outline of how it works:

• Decide what health improvements are most important to you. Find your motivation.
• Make a list of all the changes you want make so you can enjoy better health
• Set your priorities. It could be whatever is easiest to do or the most important change to make
• Start with one change in your diet and/or exercise. Focus on that change, however small, until it becomes a habit.
• Personify your bad habits. Don’t beat yourself up when you fall off the wagon. Your bad habit is your enemy
• Repeat with the next change

Find Your Motivation to Build Healthy Habits

After a lifetime of being able to eat as much and whatever I wanted, with no noticeable ill effects, my body finally said, “Enough!” First, I gained weight. I was always skinny, so I welcomed the 20-pound weight gain. The problem was that it was ALL in my belly. One evening I was visiting my parents, and my Dad patted my pot belly, laughed and said, “What’s this?”

I lost the weight over a few months and thought that was enough. Then I went for a checkup the first time in years only to discover I had high blood pressure, was pre-diabetic, and had high LDL cholesterol. I found my first health priority; to avoid having to go on a lifetime of medications to deal with these problems.

I was so motivated, I made several major changes to my diet and still stick to it 80-90% of the time. In a few months I got my blood work and blood pressure back in the normal range. I’m 64 years old when I write this, and I still don’t have to take any medications.

It was critically important to me to find my “why.” Last year, I found another “why”. My wife was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. As I looked toward my future as a caregiver, I realized I had let myself get weak. So I found my motivation to exercise. When I’m not in the mood to exercise, or when I don’t feel like eating healthy for a few days, I ask myself if I really want to start taking those medications or if I am strong enough to care for my wife in the future.

List What You Need to Change

When I decided to change how I ate, I made a list of all the changes to my diet I wanted to make. After doing research (not reading what some guru said but digging into the actual scientific studies), I made a mental list of the changes I wanted to make in my diet. Before I locked into those changes, there were some important things I had to consider. Here is what I wanted my new diet to look like:

• Keep sugar consumption as close to zero as possible.
• 50% of my calories come from healthy fats
• Keep total carbohydrate intake below 150 grams a day
• Try to make vegetables half of the volume (not weight) of food I eat every day.

Before I started exercising, I made a list of the things I needed to improve concerning my fitness. I wrote this list down. It was a long list. I want to improve my strength, stamina, and flexibility/mobility.

Set Your Priorities

The key to making lasting changes that became new habits was to decide what might do me the most good with the smallest sacrifice or effort. When I changed my diet, my first focus was on sugar. I started reading nutritional labels on everything I ate.

I decided my first priority with exercise was to increase my strength. Four years of sedentary, in-town living made me weak. That year I pulled a muscle in my back twice just by turning the wrong way. I wasn’t even lifting anything. I couldn’t even do one pushup off my knees, much less off my toes.

Commit to One Healthy Habit at a Time

As I mentioned earlier, I cut way back on sugar consumption to start my healthier diet. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so I thought that change would be the easiest to stick with. It turns out this was a bigger challenge than I thought because it made me give up a lot of processed food. It seems like they put sugar in everything these days! I was still able to stick with this change, but it’s important to start with the easiest change you can make. CREATING A NEW HEALTHY HABIT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.

With exercise, I started with pushups off the kitchen counter. One set to failure was all I did. Each day I committed to doing only those pushups. You can read more about the DS4H exercise strategy HERE.

Now, while I only committed to sticking with one change, I started experimenting. Some days I didn’t stop at pushups. I did curls, planks, and, every once in a while, a full body workout. Throughout the day I added two simple isometric abdominal exercises. Other days, it was all I could do to get through my one set of pushups. When I didn’t feel like doing anything, I would tell myself, “Aw come on, man, it won’t even take a minute!” That reminder was enough to keep up my new habit.

Personify Your Bad Habits

In my other life, I run a nonprofit organization that works with homeless and other low-income people. Over 30+ years, I heard from scores of people who kicked some serious drug addictions, especially crack cocaine. A common theme from many who overcame a crack addiction was that they grew to hate the drug for what it was doing to their lives more than they loved the high it gave them. They treated the crack as their enemy and a person or an outside force.

When I go several days of letting my old habits drift back (it happens), I blame the habit and don’t beat myself up. My old, bad habits win a few battles, but the war is far from over. I hate those habits because I see them wanting to turn me into a weak, over-medicated, old man. Looking at them this way makes it a lot easier for me to get back on track.

This article is the foundation of everything else that will follow on this blog. I will refer back to it often will update it with links to other posts that give you more details about each of these steps.

Now, go Do Something (just start one new healthy habit) for your health.