Atomic Habits for a Lifelong Weight Loss Journey

Atomic Habits for A Lifelong Weight Loss Journey

We are our habits. What does this mean? From the moment we wake up until we fall asleep our day is guided by our ingrained habits. We tend to run our day on autopilot most of the time, don’t we? Think about waking up every morning, what is your first action? ( ie. I meditate in bed for 10 min right upon waking up and then make my bed right away) We all have our own favorite ways to start and end the day. This is mine. It officially makes me day ready.

For a moment; think of all the minute details that drive your habits. The way you stand and gobble your breakfast may look weird to someone else but for you it’s normal. Without realization, you eat your breakfast while driving to work or standing by your kitchen counter.
Habits to a large extent makes our identity. If you don’t go out with friends or host a dinner on weekend, you don’t feel like you belong. If you don’t drink your morning coffee, you feel like something is missing.

One of the best books I have ever read on Habits is written by James Clear called the Atomic Habits. While reading, I witnessed a few light bulb moments. There are big takeaways from the book that in particular have helped me inculcate new habits and let go of the ones that didn’t serve me right.

I have used a few tricks to help my health and weightloss journey. These tricks really nailed my intention to actually do the things that would get me closer to my goals. Here is a summary of my journey into good habit building and sticking with it.

Based on what James Clear explains in his books; these are the 4 steps by which all habits are formed. It is namely cue, craving, response and reward.

Say for example, you want to lose weight. But,let’s first identify your BIG WHY? ( ie. Why do I need to lose weight?) Ask yourself this question. No matter what; it must be something that means a lot to you. Are you simply frustrated with the perpetual cycle of weight loss/weight gain and ready to move on with your life? Do you want to feel as young and energetic as in your 20s? Or have you or a loved one recently received a concerning diagnosis or experienced a health scare?

Secondly, you need to define your goals clearly. Speak it loud, visualize it, own it and post it. (ie. I had written on a post-it and stuck it behind my bedroom door). How many kilos do I want to lose and why? This was useful daily reminder especially when days felt tough)

Once I did that , I knew that in order to lose weight I had to get my nutrition and every meal right. Later came the fitness and other aspects that would amplify my efforts & accelerate my result. I already knew that what I was doing for months and years wasn’t working positively for my health. (ie. I was diagnosed with PCOS, low grade inflammation, and mild depression, and I was many pounds higher than my ideal weight. So I had strong motivation to catch the fire while it’s still small). Now, when I look back, the fire wasn’t really small.

When you assess your lifestyle, what are you doing on a daily basis? You know what your biggest challenges are. Most times you realize that it’s your bad habits that keep you stuck. Changing habits can be daunting. Here is how I applied the 4 steps (Atomic Habits book) to habit forming suggested by James Clear.

Cue- anything that triggers a response. (ie. as you sit in the car)

Craving- Craving to satisfy a certain need. (ie. you want to drive safely)

Response- How and what you do in action for certain triggers. ( ie.you reach out for the seat belt)

Reward- You feel safe. (ie. wearing the seat belt gives you a sense of security while driving on the road & you feel like a responsible citizen)

 

Similarly, when it comes to eating right, I know my fruit intake always gets compromised. So I started selecting 3 different fruits and placing them on my work desk. This visual cue generated a craving to satisfy my need to eat more fruits, as a response I started eating them as my snack and I felt energetic, full and great about completing my daily goal of eating 2-3 fruits.

Habit shift may at first feel like identity shift- For any habit to stick- you must use these four steps to make it a no brainer. Initially habits may feel hard to change since most times you feel like it’s your identity. Giving up on your identity is like finding yourself a completely new wardrobe that isn’t your style. (ie, i had to leave my morning chai in the morning which i thoroughly enjoyed while reading a few pages from a book that I felt drawn to, but now the book stayed and the tea had to go) What did I do?

Next step is to use “HABIT REPLACEMENT” as a catalyst while trying to change your habit. (ie. Since I loved my morning tea and reading, I decided to replace my tea with a herbal concoction (masala chai) without any tea leaves or caffeine) This kind of replacement will keep you in touch with how you associate to your daily routine and yet help you gradually find new supportive ways to lose weight.

The third tip that can be useful is to “HABIT STACK” . Once a small good habit has found its place in your life, your next step is to build upon it. (ie. once I started having my non caffeine chai, I would usually hang around or pick up my phone for social media updates, or check my emails etc.)

I identified that this isn’t serving my end goal which was to lose weight, it may be bringing a quick gratification but in reality, I was losing my precious morning time which could be used to squeeze in a short workout. So I laid my yoga mat in the same room the night before next to where I’d sit in the morning. So all I had to do was hop on the yoga mat in my Pjs and do some 20 minutes of Surya Namaskar and breath work.

Last but not the least, if you want to set yourself for success, make sure you create this amplifying environment that all the time supports your end goals. (ie. when I would suddenly feel hungry and as my blood sugar felt a dip I would crave for all sorts of crackers, cookies and bread, so i devised a plan of avoiding to keep such food at home in stock and replacing it with healthier options that was easy for me to reach like dates, fruits, roasted peanuts, nut butters etc.)

If you are someone who craves for unhealthy salty or sugary snacks, refrain from buying such foods (try it for a week) or make it hard to reach such food and mark it as “Dead Foods that reminds you of your end goal.

Let me summarize this for you

  1. Find your purpose
  2. Own your Why?
  3. Identify what habits do not serve you in your goals
  4. Follow the 4 steps to habit formation
  5. Implement habit stacking to shift your lifestyle
  6. Enhance your environment to support your end goal 

 

I can’t let you go without dispersing this hard truth that you gotta remember with utmost seriousness. If you form a habit, make sure you do it with consistency. Failing once is ok but failing twice is a downward spiral which you don’t want to slide down to.

Need Help Getting The basics right? Accountability works like magic and bounces your efforts to reach your goals faster and more efficiently.  Here’s the link to get in touch with me for a quick Discovery call where I can learn more about you and map out a plan for how we can work together.