As you know I am often bringing you real client conversations. I do this because these conversations are very rarely one-off moments, nor am I personally immune to these pit falls. I have them over and over again with folks who are feeling stuck, frustrated on their journey toward their goals, and are struggling to see the forest from the trees. I have had them with myself, time and time again over the years. This is the trick with body composition change and/or habit change, in a world where we are more, and more used to instant gratification.
Our delayed gratification “muscle” is very weak. We can turn on the TV and instantly watch whatever we want, we can open up the computer and order food and have it delivered to our doorstep, or get same day shipping on whatever material items we want. We are cold, we turn up the heat, we are hot, we turn up the air conditioner. We are constantly being pinged with mini dopamine hits by internet approval every time we post something. Many of us are no longer accustomed to having to wait for anything for any length of time, or having to experience even an iota of discomfort.
This is part of the reason why I have these same conversations with clients over and over, who say they are doing all the things right, their nutrition is on point, they have been exercising, for weeks, maybe even months and nothing is changing. This can be incredibly frustrating, and I want you to know… I have been there. Sometimes, even now, after coaching and training exclusively full time, for over ten years, and knowing how it works, I still go there. The negative self talk creeps in and it feels easier to throw in the towel and go back to my old habits.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear writes, “The most important thing to note is that there is some “tipping point” at which new habits become more or less automatic. The time it takes to build a habit depends on many factors including how difficult the habit is, what your environment is like, your genetics, and more. That said, the study cited above found the average habit takes about 66 days to become automatic. (Don’t put too much stock in that number. The range in the study was very wide and the only reasonable conclusion you should make is that it will take months for new habits to become sticky.)”
This tipping point is a crucial concept to understand. We do all this work behind the scenes for seemingly zero progress, it accumulates over days, weeks, months, and then when you hit your very own personal tipping point, you have a breakthrough. People start noticing the change, your clothes fit differently, or any number of obvious external change has happened. It looks to the outside world like some sort overnight miracle, but it’s absolutely not. You put in the work, everyone who has ever achieved anything, has put in the work, despite your outward perception.
It’s easy to let the stories we tell ourselves about others’ success and how they got there take over. That it was easy for them, and we are somehow different, wrong, slow, or whatever tricks the brain is playing to move us back to the relative comfort and safety that lives in not changing.
So how do you get from that comfort and through the dark night of change, to the point where it feels automatic? If your goals are body composition change, one of the ways I have helped my clients and myself is in a perspective shift. Many folks, hop on the scale, in their second to ninth (or longer) week of habit change and feel dismayed, the stories start swirling, the pants are still tight, or the muscles fail to pop. This is where we have to take our emotions by the horns and say, “NO! You are wrong and I will show you why!”
Here are some tips to change those stories and prove the devil on your shoulder as wrong:
Stop using the scale as your only tracking metric of success. Weight is a terrible indicator of body composition change on its own.
It will fluctuate with many factors, including your nutritional intakes or lack thereof, water, sodium, hormones (where you are in your cycle), inflammation (from exercise or otherwise)
Weight only tells part of the picture because muscle is more dense than fat, and muscle density is directly correlated with bone density. More density is generally good and what most folks want, but it means more weight will be packaged in a smaller package. Muscle is also approximately 76% water, more water, more weight.
You are not a number. The scale doesn’t tell you how hard you are working, how awesome of a human you are, how many habits you have improved, etc… all it tells you is your relationship to gravity on the planet Earth, that is IT. Bye Felicia, bye…
Play the long game and start paying attention to your progress. If it’s been a month and you started out walking 5 minutes every other day and now you are walking 10, that’s a HUGE win. In fact, it’s a 100% improvement. If you ate zero vegetables last month, and this month you ate three, WOW. Imagine the cumulative success of this over a year, or years!
Actively seek out alternative measures of success and smack yourself in the face with them every day. If you don’t keep them obvious it will be easy for the nay saying comfort demon to creep back in until you hit your tipping point. So you must keep these metrics in an obvious place and look at them and celebrate your successes.
Know what motivates you. If you need outside accountability ACTIVELY seek it out. If you need someone else to help you see the data in a realistic way, find them, let them help you. If you are internally validated, have something to show yourself to remind you where you are going and where you came from. Some tracking metrics that work for me and my clients are:
- Body measurements with a tape measure or a string.
- Fitness testing and assessment or just looking at program progression (which I keep great notes for my clients, but you can also do this for yourself)
- Nutrition tracking through a paper journal, an app, photos, etc…
- Progress photos
- Bioelectric Impedance Analysis – You can honestly buy a very inexpensive scale that does a decent job of telling you your body fat percentage, muscle percentage, etc… is it the gold standard of body composition, no. Does it matter for most people…. NO, it’s a solid and CONVENIENT tracking tool.
- Fitbit, Garmin, Whoop, etc… data. Seemingly everyone has a smart watch these days, use it! You probably paid a lot of money for it. If you don’t know how to look at the data, look it up, or get someone to help you, a very easy metric to look at is resting heart rate. For most folks, the lower the RH the more cardiovascularly fit they are.
- These are just a FEW ideas, it can be a seemingly simple metric that you can track and see progress related to your goal. Think about YOUR journey, no one else’s. What have you improved on, and do you have realistic expectations or time frame? Or are you still expecting your goal to arrive via DoorDash?
Now sometimes, when you have checked all the boxes, done all the things diligently and genuinely created sustainable habit change and things are still not moving there is opportunity to take a deeper dive into other areas, sleep, recovery, hormone function, etc… Or maybe, just maybe your overly restrictive habits have caused you to become maladaptive, and you need some time in maintenance, and this is not saying that those are not all very valid issues for some people. If that’s you, again, you need to ask for help, seek out experts, be your own biggest advocate. None of that is easy, and it will not be a quick fix. Expectation CHECK! But, don’t give up, the pay off can be HUGE when you shift your perspective and put in the work.
Habit change stems from self awareness, you know you best, but sometimes we need help seeing ourselves with clarity and empathy. We are often our own harshest critics, especially when we have high expectations of ourselves to be super human machines. You have lived in your body longer than anyone else (I hope) and it’s up to you to get the support you need. Whether it’s a coach, a trainer, an accountability partner, a registered dietician, or a doctor, or maybe some combination of them all. I hope that this will inspire you to start paying attention to the seemingly small wins, celebrate them, and to seek out the support you need along the way. Tell me your thoughts, I’d love to hear from you!
If you are looking for community of support, come join me and this amazing group of EMPOWER-ed people here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1104296846848402
Or schedule your courtesy coaching call and I can help you find those wins (I know you have them!) and help give you the tools to grow them to your tipping point and beyond: https://calendly.com/coachchristineb/discovery-call
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