And Hello December! (repost of last December's post by our lovely @themedalist)

For many of us, December is a challenging month to stick with building healthy habits. There are holiday get togethers with friends, family, and co-workers and food is usually the centerpiece. With more events and time commitments, exercise (and sleep!) often get squeezed out, which is a shame because they are both
great coping mechanisms for what is often a stressful month.

It's never worked out well for me to just "wait until January". Too much food and too little exercise will result in excess pounds being carried over into 2022 and that's not how I want to start the year. Instead, I'm going to make doubly sure I sleep enough, stay active every day, and and eat mostly healthy foods in reasonable quantities.

What do you want to accomplish this month? How do you want things to be better for you in 2022? What can you do this month that's sustainable for you? What WILL you do now?

Let's make this wrap up month a great one!

🌷Denise & 🌸Maddie
@themedalist & @MadisonMolly2017


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NEWCOMERS:
If you are new to our group, welcome! Please let us know what you will be working on this month and how we can help! A suggestion: set a reminder to check-in periodically with us. Check-in daily, weekly, or as often as works for you, but let us know how you are progressing! We're here to support and encourage you, but if you don't post, we can't cheer you on!

IF YOU ARE NEW TO BUILDING HABITS:

Building new habits is a structured, time-consuming, and repetitive process. It doesn’t just happen overnight. But it’s well worth the effort! Having good eating, exercise, and sleeping habits makes it much easier to lose weight and achieve your other health goals. You won’t have to rely on feeling motivated. You’ll act on your new habits because it’s just what you do. We use the recommended approaches of noted habits experts BJ Fogg, James Clear, Wendy Wood, and Charles Duhigg to guide us through this process.

We have 2 different strategies we recommend. Both are good tools for habit formation, they are just different methods and one might be better suited to you than the other.


METHOD 1: HABIT STACKING
We highly recommend habit stacking as a great way to build a new healthy habit. Simply attach the habit you want to create to a habit you already have using this structure:

AFTER I ________________________

I WILL __________________________

EXAMPLES:
After I brush my teeth, I will floss one tooth.
After I drink my afternoon coffee, I will put on my walking shoes.
After I put away my breakfast dishes, I will prep 3 servings of vegetables for the day.
After I clean up after dinner, I will plan tomorrow’s dinner & move necessary items from freezer to refrigerator.
After I weigh myself in the morning, I will drink 2 cups of refreshing, cool water.
After I start my coffee brewing, I will stand on each leg for 30 seconds.

METHOD 2: HABIT LOOP

Frame your goal along these lines:

1. My goal for this month (This December I will...")
2. The small actions I’ll be taking to accomplish this goal
3. The trigger or cue to remember to do my habit
4. How often will you do your new habit (daily is best if possible)
5. What reward will you immediately give yourself for doing your habit? (Small positive feedbacks reinforce the habit you are trying to build.)
6. What help do you need from us?
7. What does success look like to you at the end of December?

THE IMPORTANCE OF TRACKERS

Since all new habits require lots of repetition to make them stick, we highly recommend you use a habit tracker to log your daily progress.

Tracker Types:
Paper - plenty of free ones or create your own. A simple sheet of paper works! Check out the trackers of @77tes in past months!
Calendar: Denise (@themedalist) uses these. Daily check marks work just fine!
Tracking apps - some are free
Physical - move a marble, paper clip, etc into a jar each day or color code them
Emoji - @TexasGardnr @nebslp & @MadisonMolly2017 are fond of these! Look in prior
month’s to see how effective they are!

Whatever helps you celebrate your baby steps and successes will work. But please use a tracker. It makes it more likely you’ll change your behavior and it’s fun to see your progress!

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