how to be more consistent

Consistency.

That one word in my eyes is the ultimate secret to losing weight. To a certain degree the secret to almost everything in life (but we’ll open that can of worms another time).

The thing about losing weight is that anything you do on a consistent basis no matter how small will help you make permanent progress. While anything you do that’s not consistent no matter how big or intense will always be temporary progress at best, meaning yes, the results will eventually disappear over time.

So what’s the trick to being more consistent?

It’s making your process as easy as possible.

The easier something is to do, the higher chance you’ll do it without fail and keep it up for a long time.

Dedicating 5 minutes to workout everyday in your bedroom is way easier than going to the gym 3 times a week. The chances of you keeping up to the 5min workout for 6 months to a year is a super high cause it’s just so easy. It’s at the comfort of home, it’s a very short amount of time, there’s very little excuse you have to not do it. I mean it gets to a point where if you really don’t do it you gotta question your priorities cos 5 mins isn’t asking for a lot at all.

On the other hand going to the gym 3 times a week there’s a million excuses you could make to skip it. Bad weather, transport problems, gym attire problems, not feeling 100%, gym’s closed, financial commitments etc. It’s a lot harder to keep up with something if you’re not loving it and there is a lot of room to make excuses for it.

5 min everyday for 365 days beats going to the gym 3x a week for 60 days then quitting. When you quit, all the benefits you gained from those 60 days slowly dissolves over time and you end up back at square one.

Consistency is easily achieved when you make your routine ridiculously easy, and I’d recommend that’s where you start. Make so easy that there’s no excuse to not do it. Once you’ve proven to yourself you can keep up with it, then start making it a little more intense and a little bit harder over time.

Just cos it’s easy doesn’t mean it’s pointless.

If you lost 0.01kg every single day for 365 days, that’s still 3.65kg lost in a year. The effort you need to lose 0.01kg daily? Very very minimal. 

I think a lot of times people struggle with consistency cos they’re just trying to juggle way to many things at once from the start. Trying to lose weight by changing your diet completely while committing to a 3-4x a week workout program is just too overwhelming.

When things get too overwhelming and you have unrealistic expectation on the results, the urge to give up is gonna be super strong. 

Consistency becomes easier when you slow it down, and take it one step at a time. Give yourself the time to adapt. When you’ve adapted to the small change, then add on a bit more. The beginning will seem like you’re doing very little, but over time it will add up to a lot, and those small changes added up together becomes significant changes, and that’s when results become inevitable.

Like with the 5min a day workout example, say by week 4 you’re finding it too easy. So how about try 10min daily from now on for the next 4 weeks. If you accomplish that and it feels easy keep adding 5 min every 4 weeks if you’re comfortable. Keep that up for 6 months and suddenly you have a 30min daily workout routine going and it still probably feels relatively easy.

But reaching that point took you going slow and adding on bit by bit for 6 months.

Try to do a 30min daily workout from day one you’re just asking for trouble and over time wondering why you’re struggling with consistency. Consistency takes time. It’s a slow build up.

It’s the same with diet.

You don’t need to completely change your diet inside out from day one. Start with something easy first. If your usual breakfast is a latte and a bagel, how bout just try switching the milk in the latte to low fat milk, and just having half a bagel instead. Stick to that for a couple of weeks then make further adjustments from there.

Consistency comes from slowing down and building over time.

Don’t aim for fast. Fast is always a dangerous route.

Fast results always requires extreme actions, and extreme actions aren’t sustainable which means results aren’t permanent. What’s the point of temporarily results when you worked so hard, and get to keep nothing.

Slow down, take it one step at a time. Aim for consistency rather than results. When you’re consistent, results have no choice but to start appearing over time.

—Po