Welcome to the Building Healthy Habits group! As the group leaders for this group, we hope you’ll take a few minutes now to read through this overview as it will help you decide if this group is a good fit for you.

As one of the largest groups on My Fitness Pal, you likely found us and perhaps thought, “Hmm…. maybe this group will help me reach my goals. I need someone to hold me accountable. Maybe habits are the key? I know I’ve got some bad habits that I need to change.”

Yes and no. Yes, changing your habits is the key to losing weight, maintaining your weight loss, becoming a daily exerciser, and achieving any other goal that you’ve set for yourself. Habits are nothing more than the collection of actions and behaviors that we do every day, often done without our awareness that we are even doing them. Who you are today reflects your current habits. If you want to be a different person, you’ll need different habits.

But no, we can’t hold you accountable. Only you can do that. You and you alone are responsible for your success. Many of us come to My Fitness Pal with a house full of exercise equipment that gathers dust, gym memberships we don’t use, an impressive knowledge of diets that might have worked had we only stuck with them, and other remnants of our past attempts to “get heathy”. The weight loss and fitness industries are billion dollar enterprises and their profits depend on our relentless search for the missing thing that will change everything for us. That missing cog that will make everything fall into place for us.

We’ve found that missing “thing” and it’s us and our ability to form new habits. We can’t hold anything or anyone else responsible for our success or failures. If you want to be a healthier person, it’s up to you to do the work that is personal change. There are no shortcuts here.



It’s not easy and it won’t happen overnight, but building healthier habits does work and we can help you understand the process and get you started. And cheer you on! If this sounds too hard and too time consuming, we are probably not the right group for you.

But if you’re ready to invest the time and energy into building a better life for yourself, we can help and welcome to our group! Here’s how you should start:

1. Go to the "Discussions" section of our webpage and locate this month’s challenge (This month I Will…”) Read the challenge and select one small action you will take this month and build into a new habit. Start small by choosing only one thing to focus on this month. If you joined later in the month, simply roll over the habit you’re working on into the new month.
   
2. Make a 30 day commitment to yourself. For the next 30 days, make your budding habit your focus every day. Repetition is the key to creating new habits. If you don’t make it a daily priority, it will not happen. What gets prioritized, gets done.
   
3. Decide how you will track your daily progress. There are lots of habit trackers and you will see them used throughout our monthly challenges. Check them out. A daily tracker will give you visible evidence of your progress and that’s a very motivating thing to see.
   
4. Set a reminder on your phone, or a post-it note, or some other alert that will remind you daily to take the action you want to build into a habit. You’ll be hearing a lot about triggers and cues and how essential they are to building new habits in our monthly challenges. Please don’t assume you will just remember. Most of us won’t and we’ve learned that reminders are key. They’ll also help you remember to check back with our group regularly.
   
5. Post your progress, frustrations, questions etc on the monthly challenge thread. We want to hear how it’s going for you and we want to cheer you on. If you don’t post, we don’t know that you’re out there and could use our support. Plus, posting your progress is a great way to hold yourself accountable.
   
6. Give your new habit a full 30 day test drive. That’s typically enough time to see if your new action a good fit for you and something you can continue doing. Within a month, many new small habits catch on and start to run on autopilot. And that’s a great place to be! No motivation, no willpower is required. You’ll do your new habit because it helps you, it makes you feel better, and it moves you closer to your goals. And it’s become something that you just do every day.

We hope you’ll decide that habit building is worth your time and attention. We hope that you’ll choose to join us in the Building Healthy Habits group.


To your health and happiness,

Denise and Maddie

@themedalist & @MadisonMolly2017