How to Stick to Your Fitness Habits the Easy Way

It’s easier to roll something downhill than to push it up a slope. As a personal trainer, it’s part of my job to tell people what they need to do to get or stay in shape: how to work out and how often, what to eat, which morning and evening routines to follow. But here’s the thing: that’s not really what most people need. Yes, it helps to know exactly how to optimize your diet and workouts—but the truth is, simply moving more and eating less junk food is good enough to be in decent shape. It’s just that most people have trouble doing that. Staying in shape is mostly about program compliance: it’s not about having the best fitness program, but about having one that’s good enough, and making sure you actually stick to it.

How to Learn Restraint If You’ve Picked Up a Bad Habit

There’s a common saying that willpower is like a muscle: it gets stronger when you use it. The truth is more complex. There’s mixed evidence for how much people can really improve their self-control. You can effectively train yourself to avoid starting bad habits—like eating junk food—in the first place, but it’s much harder to try and stop doing them once you’ve started.

I’ve seen this demonstrated time and again in my personal training clients. In my coaching experience, successful dieters usually declare certain foods to be completely out of bounds, or allowed only during occasional designated cheat meals, rather than expecting themselves to eat everything in moderation. One example is particularly notable. I had a client who ate fast food for lunch every weekday. He initially wanted me to help him limit consumption to two slices of pizza or one hamburger, and no fries each day. He was resistant to the idea of giving up his lunch habit, but I convinced him to eat salad for lunch most days, limiting pizza and burgers only to lunch on Fridays and dinner on Sundays. After a year of no progress, this one change was enough that he started losing 1 kg a week.

Don’t Resist Temptation — Avoid It

Saying “no” to a tempting bad habit might seem like a simple matter of self-control. But it turns out that people with high self-control may not necessarily be better at resisting temptation. They might just experience it less often in the first place. Avoiding temptation usually requires changing your environment or your daily routine. Everyone can benefit from simple practices, like not keeping junk food in their home. But you may need to take a deeper look at where you experience temptation. One client of mine was trying to build the habit of eating salads for lunch, but she kept craving and ordering dessert after her salad. In her case, the fix was to change her lunch location to a healthy restaurant that didn’t have any desserts she liked. Focus on building one of these habits for one month. Then, once you’re consistent with those habits, add in another one, and build momentum. Within three months, you’ll have built several habits that completely change your attitude towards fitness and your relationship with food.

Sticking to a fitness program doesn’t need to be a constant uphill battle. When you understand the science of diet and fitness psychology, you can become a person who doesn’t need to think twice about eating healthy and making it to the gym.