One step at a time

Editor’s note: Today we introduce a monthly new health and fitness column by Trevor Warnke and Simeon Lang, owners of Game Changing Performance, a group fitness facility in Jefferson.

Have you ever had that moment when you wake up and say I’m going to lose weight? You are thinking that you will exercise five days a week, stop smoking, quit drinking pop and eat perfect at every meal.

Monday starts and you go from a crappy habit life to perfect nutrition and fitness habits. After Day 1 you want to stop, but you struggle through Day 2 and by Day 3 you are downing a bag of potato chips and a 20-ounce pop saying you will never lose weight.

The main issue here was you took on way too much change at once.

The body hates changes, and you radically changed everything in one day.

The only way you’ll form long-lasting habits is by focusing on one habit at a time, one month at a time, so that you’ll be able to focus all your energy on creating that one habit.

Here are some quick tips to change your habits:

• Select one habit — only one habit per month. Start small and conquer little victories at a time.

• Write down your plan. Keep it simple: I am only going to drink eight ounces of water every two hours today.

• Let someone close to you know your goal. Make sure this person is a supportive person that will help you succeed.

• Write down your progress daily. Either check off how many times you did something, put it in an app or just let your friends know you accomplished that today. Little victories remember.
Some ideas for nutritional habit changes:

• Eating breakfast every day

• Increasing your fruit and veggie intake to five servings per day

• Taking one gram of fish oil per day

• Eating lean protein with each meal and snack

• Drink one less pop each day

• Don’t shop for groceries hungry

• Drink half your body weight in ounces each day

Actionable task
Here is a habit breakdown you can start with today and implement to help you start the first change to your nutritional diet.

Drink half your body weight in ounces. This is extremely important for many functions in the body and is a game changer.

Example below is for a 160-pound person.

Step 1: Take your body weight, divide by two (80 ounces of water for this person)

Step 2: Grab a water bottle that easily breaks down this number. For this person I would choose a 20-ounce water bottle.

Step 3: Put rubber bands on the water bottle that represent one full bottle (20-ounces for each rubber band). This allows us to keep a tally throughout the day.

Step 4: Since this person needs to drink four of these in a day, they should try to drink 10 ounces per hour to make sure they stay properly hydrated throughout the day. Drinking it all at once will not be as beneficial.

Step 5: Set a midday alarm on your phone to make sure you check to see if by this point you have drank at least 40 ounces of water (or half your amount).

Step 6: You want to have drank 95 percent of the water by two hours before you go to bed so you don’t have to get up every hour during the night.

Step 7: Wake up and repeat. Do this for at least 21 days before adding a habit.

Is it any surprise that when people try to massively overhaul their lifestyle in short order the changes simply don’t stick? Of course not.

But let’s be honest — most of us aren’t known for being patient. And most people who come to us want to be in shape, like, yesterday.

So start with these little changes. Let them build on each other every day.

When you conquer one, add another.

In three months, you’ll have a nice, natural, habit-based diet going and you will have the power to make huge changes to your life.

Trevor Warnke, a 2004 graduate of Jefferson-Scranton High School, is CEO of Game Changing Performance, 708 N. Cedar St.
He has a bachelor’s degree in exercise science and is certified as a strength coach and personal trainer.