At times when my twin brother and I were kids, it seemed to my mum like she could only get one of us behaving at a time. Lovingly, she used to say “if it’s not one it’s the other!”

I think this is the way some of my clients feel about their eating and physical activity habits. Either they can be eating fairly healthily, or happy with the amount of exercise they are getting in, but can’t seem to get both working together. And if they do, it doesn’t last long.

Often, this is because it takes two things to create new habits:

Willpower &
Time

And when we try to change too much at once, we don’t give ourselves enough of either to create lasting habits. Coupling diet and exercise under the umbrella of “weight loss habits”, diet culture encourages us to change both together. But if that proves too difficult, as this short video explains, then it can be better to work on one, and wait until you have developed some real habits before you turn your attention to the other.