Beyond the Quick Fix: Building Habits That Last and Keeping the Momentum
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Natalie Stein
CDC Lifestyle Coach, Certified Diabetes Care and Education Specialist, and expert in nutrition, public health, and healthy lifestyle choices
In this article:
- August can inspire a desire to reset before fall starts, but it’s important to avoid dramatic changes and an all-or-nothing thinking mentality that can lead to burnout.
- Small changes and tiny wins can help build momentum to overcome the brain’s resistance to change. It can help to try small steps that can lead to wins to establish habits that can last.
- Willpower is limited, so avoiding the need for willpower can increase chances of success. You can reduce the need for willpower by making healthy choices the easier choices - like placing medications near your coffee cup or thawing frozen vegetables in advance.
- Lark can support you 24/7 as you make healthy choices to lose weight and manage blood sugar, blood pressure, or other conditions with or without GLP-1s.
By August, the end of summer is in sight - and for many, it’s time for a reset. Whether summer travel has interfered with your healthy intentions, or seasonal changes to your schedule have made it harder to stay on track, it’s common to want to focus more on health as fall approaches.
Building habits that last is the most likely path to long-term success in achieving weight loss and health goals. Instead of dramatic - and often difficult - overhauls to your lifestyle, small changes that are easy to make can be the most effective strategy for success. Keep reading to learn about building habits that last - with a minimum of effort.
Small Changes for Lasting Success
When it’s time for a reset, many people resolve to make major overhauls. For example, they may decide to cut all starches and added sugars, eliminate meat and fast food, and go to the gym 7 days a week. These are all examples of well-meaning healthy changes, but these resolutions rarely last. They’re too much, too fast!
Aiming for small changes instead of a major lifestyle overhaul is a key to lasting change. When you make minor tweaks in your current routines, you can get used to them more easily. Eventually, they become habits that you don’t have to think about anymore. Then, you can build on those tweaks with more tweaks.
Here are some examples of small changes and why it’s often possible to make them last.
| Small Change | What it does | Why It’s Likely to Last | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Remove chicken from skin before eating it | Reduces calories and saturated fat | Recipes can be the same as before - so there’s no need to do research | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ask for salad dressing on the side | Reduces calories, sodium, fat, and sugar | You can still order the same salad and enjoy flavors of dressing, so there’s no deprivation | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Park in the furthest available spot in the parking lot | Increases physical activity | It takes only a few extra seconds to walk the extra distance | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Switch from cream or whole milk to skim milk or unsweetened almond milk in your daily coffee. | Reduces calories and saturated fat | The morning routine stays exactly the same, but it quietly cuts out saturated fat and calories every single day. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Drink a Don’t worry if these changes seem too small. They’re all effective. And, you can always build on them! A Win Is a Win - Shifting Thinking Away from an “All-Or-Nothing” MentalityAn all-or-nothing mentality can quickly cause you to give up. That’s because an all-or-nothing mentality says that everything has to go perfectly or it’s not worth trying. In real life, sooner or later, something will get in the way of perfection, or “all” - bad weather will make it impossible to walk outside as planned, or you’ll work late and not be able to prepare the healthy meal you’d planned. With an all-or-nothing mentality, you might decide to end up with nothing - or no healthy choices. Instead, shifting your mindset to “something is better than nothing” can help you see wins and stay motivated to build on them. When an obstacle gets in the way of perfection, try to see what healthy actions you can still take instead of giving up completely. Here are some examples.
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