Interesting quiz: What's your Habit Personality?

A little about how each habit type can find success on MFP:

Upholders probably have the easiest time sticking to weight loss and exercise plans if they simply decide to make these things part of their habits. They're the ones who likely respond best to "just do it". If you're an upholder, deciding to schedule calorie tracking or workouts into your routine, and focusing on the how, probably work best for you. Fitbits and trackers and convenience meal plans are useful for upholders, since these things help them with their habit forming. External support is helpful for upholders, especially at the beginning, but they're likely fine without it too because once they decide to lose weight, they just do it.

Questioners probably need to understand the 'why' instead of the 'how'. They will lose weight not because their doctor tells them to or because of any external expectations, but because they understand the reasons -- the health implications, or the logic. They also are the people who do best by taking control of the process by understanding why it works; the science or math behind CICO, the ability to manipulate calories based on diet or exercise choices. If you're a questioner, you're probably also a skeptic, and less likely to accept all the fad diet or quick fix ideas out there. Once you understand why it works, you'll probably do fine, with or without external support.

Rebels are probably the ones who are most likely to avoid wanting to lose weight if they feel pressured by the people around them or by society's expectations to do so. "Screw you, I'm not going to turn into some skinny media ideal just because you tell me to" might have been their rebel-minded reason for not doing it sooner. The best way to motivate yourself as a rebel? Set yourself a challenge. Get someone else to say (or say to yourself) "hey, I bet you can't lose the weight / deadlift 100lbs / run a half-marathon". Then prove yourself wrong, because nobody -- not even you -- is gonna tell you that you can't do something, amirite? Finding exercise you love is another great way for a rebel to do something because you want to run / lift / train / dance. If you're doing it because you enjoy it, not because anyone expects you to, you're more likely to stick with it. Rebels often do best when they have a lack of support, or even negative support, since people doubting them tends to motivate them more than people supporting them.

Obligers are usually the ones who find the most success by creating external accountability. Saying "I'm going to lose weight so I can be there for my children" or "I'm going to the gym because I made a commitment to my friend that we'd go twice a week and I don't want to let her down" can be powerful motivators. If you recognize that you're an obliger, you probably want to seek out as much external support as possible. Obligers respond well to group diet pledges, team sports, or anything where failure to stick to their MFP plan would let someone else down.

JordanAron wrote: »

Questioner, also a bit of a rebel. I'll think about why I want to lose weight, study the concept, and weigh the pro's and cons. Then figure out how I want to do that on my own, make it work and find creative ways to do it...and I definitely fight against social norms...that includes the food obsession forced down our throats by the media. Eat this, buy that, exploding flavours you just can't live without...um...yeah right...so why aren't you advertising carrots and broccoli? Why? Because healthy food doesn't rely upon manipulation, you buy it because you need it, not because somebody else wants you to buy it.

All of this, yep.