4 Steps To Develop Healthy Habits For Sustainable Fat Loss

Overweight or obesity is a result of consistent bad eating habits and poor lifestyle. Turning these bad habits into healthy ones can help you achieve sustainable fat loss.

When we think of losing fat, we eventually think of some magical transformations which are shown in movies that suddenly everything will change in 90 days; we will shed all our fat and have chiselled abs. Sadly, as good as it sounds, it’s hypothetical.

Health and fat loss coach Jashan Vij, says, “Fat loss is a result of your daily habits, which are carried out for months and even years. Like, nobody gets obese overnight, but consistent bad eating habits and poor lifestyle lead to the storage of fat in our bodies.”

We have to eat junk food for years, consume high amounts of sugar, have a really bad sleeping routine for years, and mess up with hormones for years to gain so much fat to be categorized as “obese.” So, as easily and patiently we gained our fat with bad eating “habits,” what if we turn those habits into healthy ones?

Vij adds, “Hacks and short-term tips can be helpful to kick-start your fat loss journey or even elevate our results a little bit, but we have to develop habits that will help us lose fat and sustain those results.”

Building Healthy Habits for Sustainable Fat Loss

To develop habits, you have to set goals first, like how much fat you want to lose, according to Vij. The expert then highlights 4 important steps to develop any habit:

Make it obvious: Use habit scorecards like take 21 days’ challenge. Science explains that it takes at least 21 days to develop any habit, 90 days to make it part of your lifestyle and 18 months to make it part of your identity.

Get a 21-day challenge calendar and visualize your goal. E.g., if you want to drink 4 litres of water for 21 days, make a calendar, and tick each day as you proceed.

Make it attractive: Why not purchase a stunning new water bottle to assist you track your water consumption as you desire to drink more water? It aids in generating enthusiasm, which eventually aids in the formation of a habit. Make habits appealing by bundling temptations. This approach aims to connect a desirable activity with a necessary action.

Make it easy: The frequency with which you engage in a habit is more important than how long you have been doing it.

Principle of least effort: Make the situation as conducive for accomplishing the right thing as you can. Increase the resistance to unruly behaviours. Example: Keep your water bottle with you at all times, for instance.

Make it satisfying: The Cardinal Rule of Behaviour Change what is immediately rewarded is repeated. What is immediately punished is avoided.

E.g., Announce that if you drink 4 litres of water for the next 21 days, you will reward yourself with a brand new t-shirt.

Rewards like this will keep you excited to achieve your goal of forming a habit, and also public commitment will help you stick to it to avoid embarrassment. And following these 4 ways, you can develop any habit.

Focus on building lifestyle habits and fat loss will be just another by-product of it, Vij adds.