What makes good habits stick? How do we get rid of the bad ones? Atomic Habits, by James Clear, gives a deep dive into the science of habit formation and how to successfully implement changes that last.
I love to think about healthy eating and creating a healthy lifestyle as a process of habit formation. After all, one of the most common associations with the word habits is ‘eating.’ Atomic Habits outlines a great framework for the types of changes that I help my clients implement and stick with to achieve their goals.
Clear divides his book into 4 categories for creating positive habits, and the inverse of those for breaking ‘bad’ habits. There are hundreds of ways these ideas can be applied to upgrading your eating, exercise, and lifestyle habits. Here are some habits that I coach people on in my practice and how they are categorized according to the Atomic Habits framework.
Four Ways to Create Positive Health Habits
(and Get Rid of the Negative Ones)
Make it Obvious
Eat More Vegetables => If you are already in the habit of making a smoothie – throw some frozen spinach into it. Clear calls this Habit Stacking. Tacking a new and desired habit onto one that's already established can be really effective.
Take YourSupplements => Who's with me and frequently forgets to take their vitamins? Put the supplement bottle on your kitchen table or wherever you eat breakfast. Tricks like this for 'designing your environment' are strategies that I frequently use for myself and my clients. As Chapter 6 is titled, "Motivation is Overrated; Environment Often Matters More."
Get Rid of the Junk Food => The opposite of making it obvious is to make the foods you would rather not eat invisible. Cleaning out your pantry and getting rid of all the junk food is one of the first things I recommend to my clients. It can be incredibly supportive of the eating habits that they’d like to establish as well as cathartic. Imagine all the space you'll reclaim!
Make it Attractive
Make Dinner at Home => Play your favorite energizing song while you’re preparing a healthy dinner or on the way to your workout. Clear calls this a ‘motivation ritual.’ It’s a technique used by many professional athletes to get into ‘game mode’. Eventually, all you’ll need to do to create the urge to eat healthy or to exercise is to play that song.
Take More Walks => If you have a habit of watching Netflix in the evening, think of it as a reward for taking a walk around the block. Over time, watching your favorite show will become associated with a brisk walk rather than with being a couch potato.
Ditch the Fake Ingredients => If you want to make processed food really unattractive, take a look at the ingredient list . Read all of those complicated ingredient names, then think of your high school chemistry lab. Still want to eat it?
Make it Easy
Eat a Better Breakfast => The easier something is to do, the more likely you are to do it – which is one of the reasons why people eat ‘junk food’ – especially for breakfast. (Somehow we have been normalized to think that cake, if it’s baked in a muffin tin or in a circle with a hole in the middle, is a good breakfast!) I often advise clients to have the ingredients for a healthy breakfast they can prep in less than 5 minutes in the house at all times. My grab-and-go is cottage cheese sprinkled with cinnamon, some nuts, and whatever fruit I have in the fridge. For you it might be yogurt and granola, or egg bites made and frozen over the weekend, ready to defrost in 1 minute in the microwave.
Get to the Gym => Make it easy to get to the gym by choosing the one that’s closest to your house or on the way home from work. Maybe it’s not the fanciest gym in town, but if you go more often, who cares? If they offer the ability to sign up for a class online, do it. The extra effort to cancel the class when you are tempted not to go might get you there instead.
Skip Dessert => Blocking access to things that you would rather not eat can also be very effective. When there is leftover dessert in my house, I give my family a day or two to eat it. Then it gets wrapped up and moved to the garage freezer. That extra step of going outside, unwrapping it, and letting it defrost makes eating it too much effort.
Make it Satisfying
Skip the Soda => When I was trying to ditch my diet soda habit, I realized that the thing I really missed was the bubbles. Now when I get the craving, I pour a glass of flavored seltzer. If I want to make it really satisfying, I put it in a pretty glass with a slice of lemon or lime. So good!
Drink More Water => An obvious way to track your habits can also be very satisfying. I advise clients who want to drink more water to keep a water bottle or glass with them throughout their day. Together we decide how many times they should empty it to get the recommended amount. Wrap that number of rubber bands around the base of the bottle or glass, and remove one every time the bottle is refilled. When the bands are gone, the goal is met! Over time, drinking more water will become automatic.
Avoid Temptation => On the other hand, if there’s something you want to stop yourself from doing, find a way to make it unsatisfying. A lot of times, food combinations are what make certain foods irresistible. Think cookies and milk, or chips and dip. If you must have cookies or chips, take away the milk or dip. You’ll probably eat less and won’t enjoy it as much.
I love sharing books that I think are great with my readers and my clients. There are hundreds more ideas in Atomic Habits that may inspire you to apply these principles to your own life . If you need help with that – schedule a free call with me! We will talk about your specific goals and problem areas and how my process will help you identify the changes that you need to make.
Since everyone is different, no two client processes are the same. The initial consultation is where I start to learn about you so that I can help you develop new habits to achieve the results you want. Remember, the longest journey starts with the first step. Contact me for a consultation today!