Growing Healthy Habits

Heading into lockdown 3.0 at CrossFit Leyland we decided to introduce a weekly team challenge for several reasons;

1. to rally our members together to support each other
2. to raise awareness of current habits and reinforce healthy habits
3. to provide greater accountability on a daily / weekly basis

Having gone through several months of lockdown over the past 10 months, we know how detrimental isolation and lack of routine can be to many peoples health and fitness. Hopefully during our first two challenges you have had a greater sense of purpose to stay on track with your health and fitness. Of course, it isn’t our intention for members to be perfect for a week (in order to score well on the weekly challenge) but then return to poor habits. Creating new habits is difficult and stopping engrained habits is even more difficult,  but it is possible with mindfulness and determination. It is our aim to expose members to challenges that will encourage healthy habits during each week, with the intention of them having a greater awareness to the benefits of maintaining these habits beyond the 7 days of the weekly challenge.

There is a tonne of research out there on successful habit building and the psychological processes involved. Generally speaking, the longer a habit is reinforced / maintained and incorporated into your daily routine, the more unconscious the actions become and the harder it is to break the habit. It takes discipline, dedication and determination EVERY DAY initially to build a successful habit, but once you have put that initial work in, it is money in the bank! Until the habit becomes engrained and part of your daily routine, there is still a conscious decision to make (“should I do x,y and z today?”) , which is typically directly tied to motivation levels (“im not feeling very motivated today, I think il leave x,y and z”).

Case in point … I recently read up on the physiological and psychological benefits of cold water submersion and was keen to try it out for myself. Although I was fully aware of the benefits and my motivation to get in freezing cold water was high in the first few days, the following days and weeks I really had to force myself to do it, because there was still a conscious decision making process involved. It was still a new feature in my daily routine. But after a few weeks of doing it, I now longer think “shall I do it?”, it is just something that I do automatically. The above example is actually a good one to use, because your ‘why’ of doing something is crucial to your success. If you really don’t want to do something (even though you know you should) then you’re probably setting yourself up for failure. For me personally, the cold  is always something I had struggled with when wild swimming, hiking, taking part in adventure races. As much as I hated cold water, my desire to be able to complete such challenges is greater.

Using a different example, the CrossFit Leyland Week 2 Team Challenge was nutrition based and involved scoring points by including; a source of protein, starchy carbohydrates and three fruit /vegetables in each meal. For many people the inclusion of NINE fruit and veg portions per day is not particularly appealing. For this week, motivation may be high, because team points are at stake and therefore adherence may be good. How about next week when there aren’t on points available for consuming fruit and veg? This is where mindset is crucial. If you want to continue this healthy habit then you need to identify your ‘why’. For example ….. “eating nine fruit and veg portions per day is proven to lower my risk of cancer and cardiovascular risk factors. I am determined to maintain this as a daily habit”. Beyond the ‘why’ you also need to put a plan in place to help you stick to it, such as planning meals and making a shopping list to ensure you buy the fruit and veg you need. Planning when you will do your shopping trip and when you will prepare your meals. Typically we see that when there is a change in a routine (e.g. you can’t complete your weekly shopping trip at the same time, or you have to work late so haven’t food prepped) the chances of a change in habit (e.g. picking up convenience food) are high.

The key thing to remember with habit building is that you’re not looking at a quick fix, you’re looking at the sum of consistent behaviour patterns. It’s also wise to focus on changing one thing at once, otherwise trying to create / modify several habits at once can be like spinning plates and more likely that one of the plates will drop! Start small and when you feel that you no longer have to make conscious decisions about that behaviour / habit you can move on to the next thing. Always return back to “why is this habit important to me?” and “what is my reward?”, because in the early days of habit building you will need your ‘why’ to pull you through and overcome nagging doubts and resistance.