Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Science tells us that beginners are more successful with process and learning
oriented goals, rather than specific outcome goals. This means that if you
are new to nutrition and training, but want to lose weight, your first order of
business is not to set a fat loss goal! It sounds counter intuitive, but if you instead
focus on learning and practicing the behaviors that support a healthy diet and
2
RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
regular exercise not only will you probably lose some weight anyway, it will
be much easier to start a diet with a weight loss outcome goal subsequently!
Even if you are feeling antsy, remember that this approach has been shown
to be more effective for long-term weight loss and will save you the stress of
failed diets and time spent re-learning! More advanced people do well with a
challenge and can make a more specific and difficult outcome goal.
You should also make sure that your goal is yours (and not what you think
people are supposed to want). See if you can frame your goal according to
internal values—for example “I want to get in shape because I value hard
work and want my body to be a reflection of this” or “I want to be more fit
so that I can play with my kids/grandkids”. Once you have your goal framed
internally, post it or a picture that reminds you of it somewhere where you will
see it regularly! Also make sure to do a trade-off assessment. Figure out what
sacrifices will be needed to get to your goal and decide if it is still worth it! It
is perfectly okay to tone your target down after you realize what it will take.
Also, avoid trying to make too many changes at once! If you had to cook
dinner for six different families, you wouldn’t schedule them all on the same
night and run house to house—that’s a recipe for burnt meals and cold food.
Goals are similar. Pick one you can handle with your current life and schedule
and work on that first.
Think of behaviors like tools in a tool box. For some goals, some tools may be
helpful. But for other goals, some tools may be useless or even get in your
way.
3
RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
Make an excel sheet, keep a journal, draw hand graphs on your basement
wall—however you manage it, start to keep track of the unwanted and wanted
behaviors you identified in the last step! Trying to change your behavior
without tracking it is like only weighing yourself on the first and last day of a
three month diet! In order to tell if you are trending in the right direction, you
must keep a log.
There are many strategies for change (and thank goodness because behavior
change is hard work!). Here are some targets and example strategies. Check
out RP’s Evidence-Based Habit Building for an in depth list of options.
4
RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
5
RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
Log insights
Example: Behavior change is a process so keep logging your reactions
and results to learn and progress further.
Your first run at behavior change might not work, but this is where all that
logging and tracking comes in! Identify pain points, reassess, and try new
strategies. Take note of the types of strategies that seem to work best for
you and use more of those.
Changing your behavior is like earning a degree or learning to play the piano.
It takes time! Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t go from zero to perfect in a few
weeks. Track your progress so that you can see if you are getting 1% better
6
RP Mini Guide to Building Healthy Habits
each week and celebrate those wins! Self-efficacy predicts more success, so
the more you can focus on the little changes you are making, the more likely
you will be to get to your end goal. Fall in love with the process of getting to
your goal and identify all of the subgoals on the way, celebrating each tiny
milestone and one day you will look back and realize you’ve surpassed your
original goals!