Increase your adherence by slowing down

Research[1] shows that adherence is influenced by the level of difference between the intervention (new habits) and the individual’s baseline (old habits), indicating that it’s better to progress, only once the change has become the norm.

To a certain degree, we all know that eating some more greens and choosing better quality produce, is always going to be a better choice than Maccy D’s when trying to achieve a healthier lifestyle. Yet, so many still fail.
 
Why?
 
Well, when it comes to our wants, we’re very impatient and take the ‘more is better’ route. Driving us to try and change too many things at once, but when it comes to your health and wellness, this isn’t the case.
 
Rushing into something usually means you’re doing so without a full understanding of what’s truly required of you. All too often do I see people following a training programme, without reading the ‘why’s’ behind the programme.
 
This then leads to a lack of systems in place which you can build upon and we most often see with diets. We all know someone who’s achieved great results whilst following a diet, only to put the weight back on once they go it alone.

We need to build our systems and understanding of what we’re doing, in order to be able to progress or regress as we need to.
 
For most of you, your health and wellness will need to be fought on multiple fronts (sleep, eat, move and mindset), which is why taking just a single step, or even multiple single steps, is much more effective for your long-term goals.
 
For instance, trying to get 2 hours extra of sleep a week whilst reducing your sugar intake, and hitting your daily step goal, is going to be way more achievable than trying to get 8 hours of sleep a night, every night and fixing every aspect of your diet and hitting the gym 5 days a week all at once.
 
Start slow and built on your momentum and you’ll soon start to see and feel the difference!
 
Are you pursuing too much too soon? Is it time to slow down?
 
Let me know what you think, speak soon.
 
- JC 
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[1] Strategies to Improve Adherence to Dietary Weight Loss Interventions in Research and Real-World Settings. Alice A. Gibson * and Amanda Sainsbury