On the first part of the article we discussed the importance of health and how people tend to perform “binge” behavior when it comes to exercise, diet, and setting lifestyle goals. The article also illustrated that these behaviors do not tend to work in the long term and we need consistent actions in order to achieve our health goals.

Doing Small, Consistent Actions

So what is the better alternative to binge diet, exercise, and New Year’s resolutions? These things fail because they are not incorporated properly in a person’s lifestyle, and so this disruption produces uncomfortable feelings and eventually the person’s willpower to achieve the goal diminishes.

An important thing to consider is to think on how to integrate your health goals with your lifestyle. Actions related to achieving those goals must not feel intrusive, uncomfortable, or difficult for these goals to stick. Thus the actions that we need to take must be small actions that can be done consistently in an extended period of time.

This compounding graph has been introduced and explained in the first part of the series. In applying to health goals, the idea is to do small, easy actions that are done consistently over time so the compounding effect kicks in. The idea of small and easy actions depend on the individual and may change over time. It is important to know your current state and situation and adjust these actions accordingly.

In contrast to the binge actions and goals that are described on the first part of this article, here are some suggestions on how to apply this philosophy into each of those areas.

Consistency in Diet

Eating is an important part of our life, and it is also one of life’s pleasures. Having too much of it though and eating the wrong kinds of food are disastrous to our health in the long run. While diet programs work for some people, what we truly need is a long-term meal plan that still satisfies our cravings.

Instead of having a sudden, big change in dietary habits, we can start by doing small changes to our diet that over time becomes natural for us. Some examples are:

• Gradually reduce your intake of junk food and soda. Replace it with healthier options like fruits or even just plain water. Some people have this strong craving for nibbling something while doing an activity, like watching TV or browsing the internet and this is where junk food comes in. Slowly replace the junk food with a healthier option while not changing the routine that you are used to.
• Gradually reduce the amount of calories you consume daily, up to a point where you do not feel hungry at all. More often than not we are eating beyond what we require for the day, and due to our primitive biological wiring, our body stores them as fat in order to prepare for the “famine” phase of primitive life. We no longer live in this period, and so we need to train our bodies to consume only the necessary food to provide energy for the day. While counting calories is very helpful, it may seem too restrictive for some people and they eventually lose motivation. Instead, we just slowly try to reduce the amount of food that we eat, in a process that we don’t notice at all, until it becomes the new norm for us.

Consistency in Exercise

Lifestyle gyms have been sprouting in cities recently, providing people with a nice, convenient place where they can work out. Some are even open for 24 hours that enables people to work out regardless of their schedule. These places are good as they provide a place for us to focus on working out in a clean and safe environment.

However, we should also consider the kind of exercise that suits our personality, health, and body type. If you see your friends or co-workers doing hard exercise, like lifting heavy weights or running for at least a few kilometers daily, it may serve as a motivation for you to join them and start exercising as well. But if you wake up the following day feeling unable to work and move because of yesterday’s strenuous exercise, you may start to think that this is a bad idea and eventually quit.

We need to be honest with ourselves on the kinds of workout that we can do, and our mindset should be that this is not a quick road to a sculpted body. Instead, our thinking should be on “how can I incorporate these exercises into my daily routine that will not make me break the habit?“. If you lift heavy weights today and the next morning you are unable to move, it may be better to start lifting smaller, lighter weights that is not going to be brutal for your body.

“But wouldn’t that be very slow? I want to have a nice body tomorrow!“, you may ask. Indeed, lifting smaller weights will tend to make the process slower than what your other peers may do, but the important thing to remember is that consistency beats intensity. If you are lifting smaller weights on a regular basis and you are able to maintain the habit for years (as it is incorporated into your lifestyle), then by the basis of the compounding effect you will come ahead compared to if you are lifting heavier weights for only a few months.

As a practical illustration on how this works, when you wake up each morning try to do a simple exercise routine. It does not matter what you do, whether you lift a dumbbell, do stretching, jog in place, as long as its a physical activity. Do this for only 5 minutes and then stop. Resolve to do it on a daily basis.

This simple 5-minute activity seems really insignificant to you, right? It does not even cause you to lose a minute amount of weight. However, the important thing is not the actual exercise, but the habit that you are setting yourself to do daily. Devoting 5 minutes of your time in exercise in a 24-hour day is a really achievable goal for most of us and you will not even feel that it disrupts your lifestyle.

Now as you continue doing this habit, you will soon find that 5 minutes is no longer enough for you, and so slowly you choose to increase that time by a few minutes, perhaps extending it to 10 minutes. Notice that you are doing this on your own accord, on your own decision, that does not impact the other daily routines or obligations you have for the day. And if there are some days where you are too busy to do 10 minutes, you know that you only committed to 5 minutes and you will not feel bad if you did not go beyond that.

There are many free resources available today that will help you do quick exercise routines to fit this 5-minute window. Searching YouTube for “5 minute exercise” returns over 21 million videos! You can choose which exercise you want or maybe stick to something that makes sense for you and you enjoy doing. Remember, the intention is to be consistent instead of being intense. Doing this simple activity over months or years will activate the compounding effect and I am sure you will be surprised at the results.

Consistency in Goals

Identifying large, ambitious goals and plans may be helpful, but it can also have a negative effect in achieving your goals. Sometimes they are too big that we cannot fathom where to start, and too daunting that we are essentially paralyzed due to the amount of work needed to achieve them.

To combat this, we need to identify goals as small and as specific as possible. These small goals should point us to the direction of our larger goal, but we should not spend too much time thinking on breaking down our large goal into smaller goals. The important thing is for us to move forward as soon as possible.

As an example, your goal is to eat healthier in 1 year. This is a large and ambitious goal and instead we replace it with smaller and more specific goals. Instead of wasting time trying to identify which food to remove and which food to eat, start by reducing the amount of junk food you consume per week. If you have been eating one pack per day of junk food, resolve to eat only 1-2 packs per week. Doing this for months will eventually make this a habit and your junk food cravings will be greatly reduced.

Once your junk food consumption has been reduced to 1-2 packs per week and this becomes a habit, you can then set it up a notch by eliminating them altogether. By doing this on a weekly basis spanning months, this becomes a new habit. After this you can then start to slowly introduce healthier foods into your diet, like fruits and vegetables. Instead of completely replacing your diet (and burn-out due to this massive change in routine), try introducing 1 fruit every 2 days, or having 1 vegetable as a snack per day.

The basic premise of the consistency beats philosophy is that we perform actions until they become a habit and they become integrated in our lifestyle. Seemingly uneventful and small actions, when done over a long period of time will reap great benefits due to the compounding effect. Small decisions that move us toward a healthier lifestyle, although it may look like ineffective in the short term, is guaranteed to move us towards our goal of a healthier life.