Have you ever looked at new health habits as a series of tasks you need to perfect? There are many different habits that are part of a healthy lifestyle such as eating more vegetables, exercising five days a week, taking your supplements regularly, and dozens more. Losing weight is not just eating fewer calories; it’s a process that involves many different tasks in order for you to be able to do that.

• What are you going to eat?
• Who is going to buy the food?
• Who is going to prepare the food?
• How are you going to measure the food?
• When are you going to eat it?

Think about all the decisions that have to be made in order for you to simply eat breakfast—not just any breakfast, but one that fits with your overall meal plan and caloric goal for that particular day.

Let’s say you want to start with a protein smoothie in the morning. Do you have the right kind of blender or juicer to be able to do that? Have you purchased all the fruit, vegetables, and protein powder that you’re going to need? How much time will you need to add to your morning routine in order to do it?

There are probably dozens more nitty-gritty things you need to perfect. The point of this memo is to have you recognize the types of changes that you’re going to have to think about, and remind you that you probably won’t get it right the first time that you try. You’re going to have to practice these new tasks. Hence the title of this memo: Practice Makes Perfect.

Fitness: An Example

If you take any tasks related to the overall goal of getting fit, there are elements of it that you’re going to have to complete. It’s not just the exercise itself. That’s something you can do. Where this idea comes into play is in preparing to exercise.

Are you going to exercise in the morning? Set your alarm at least 15 minutes before you want to begin. For some of you it may have to be an hour earlier because you have certain rituals you perform in the morning before you start your day.

When your alarm rings, get up and get out of bed. You can go back to bed if you want to, but you have to get out of the bed. Do that for one week, weekdays, or weekend. Get good at it. Get used to it. You’re practicing to get up on time in order to be able to exercise. You may find out right then that getting up early is not going to work—maybe mornings just aren’t your time and you’re going to have to figure out some other time to exercise.

Then the following week, the night before you start, lay out your exercise gear. When the alarm goes off, get up get out of bed and put on your workout gear. Do that for a week. Laying out your clothes the night before. Getting up on time. And getting dressed on time. Again, you can go back to bed if you want. When you’ve got that mastered, again weekday or weekend, then you can start your workout routine.

Seems a little silly, I know. But you have to practice being successful at the things that precede exercise before you can be successful at exercising itself. You’re going to run into obstacles, and you don’t yet know what they are. It may be that your wife will want to get up at the same time. It may be that your kids, if you have them, will hear you and want to get up as well. You have to be able to deal with all of those issues and anticipate that they may happen at varying times before your workout. Think of it as getting prepared for a game-time situation. Once you’ve experienced it, you’ll know how to react better than you would if you leave it to chance.

We could do this approach for every task related to any health or fitness goal. The degree to which you have to cut up that elephant to consume the parts depends on you. Some tasks may be easy to manage while others will not. But unless you perfect the component tasks, it will be too easy to quit when an obstacle appears.

The Bottom Line

In this summer of coronavirus, improving everyone’s health has never been more important; if the virus tracks you down six months from now, you can be better prepared to fight it off. This week I’ve written about ways to help you prepare to change your health from where it is to where you want it to be.

• Setting realistic goals allows you to break up any big goal into manageable parts.
• Changing directions is critical, or you’ll end up where you don’t want to be.
• Finally, you have to practice to get the tasks that contribute to your goal just right. You can do it with enough practice. One bite at a time.

What are you prepared to do today?

        Dr. Chet