Research shows that any effort, even as little as 10%, can yield lasting results. [1] Let’s face it, though, most of us have had the all-or-nothing mindset drilled into us from a young age. We were encouraged during childhood sports to, “give it your all” or “give 110% every time”. Of course, in the context of sports and competition, you certainly do want to give 100% effort, but in day to day life, this all-or-nothing mentality tends to trip us up—especially when it comes to “diet” and exercise. We look at it in terms of what we “have to” give up in order to be healthy, or what we “have to” change about our lifestyle, and usually those are things we rather enjoy (like pizza, bread, and apple pie). We think to be healthy we must “give up” everything we love and trade that for something we hate (exercise or kale). Well, few people have the motivation to stick to something like that for long. A few months or even a year, but eventually the pull to do what we have told ourselves we “can’t” do becomes too strong. It’s a vicious cycle that plays itself out repeatedly in the lives of so many leading to disappointment, ambivalence, and hopelessness (with a side of chronic weight-cycling). Eventually the attitude changes from “I’ll start this diet on Monday” to “why bother, I know I won’t stick to it anyways. I just want to live my life and be happy.” If any of this is sounding familiar, I am here to offer you hope. You do not have to overhaul your life or give up everything you love to lose weight or improve the current state of your health. You don’t have to give 100% effort, 50% effort, or even 25% effort. Most of us are too busy or unmotivated to change 100% of our lives at once anyways, let alone trying to sustain such a drastic change over the course of our lifetime. But 10% effort…now that seems a little more doable.
I decided to put this idea of 10% effort to the test in my own life, so I could measure for myself what it would look like, and what results (if any) would come of it. Would 10% really be enough to see a change? I was genuinely curious to see if my experience would reflect what the research suggests. Examining my current habits and goals I was able to identify some things I’d like to do better, but really didn’t have the time or desire to “overhaul”. Not to mention, I’m generally opposed to overhauling anything to begin with, because like most people, I don’t enjoy the feeling of deprivation or thinking I’m not “allowed” to do something. So, my challenge was to make permanent behavioral changes and develop new sustainable habits, while only giving 10% effort above and beyond what I was already doing.
Goal #1 (Movement): For the last few years I have consistently worked out in the afternoon when I get home from work (usually between 3:30-5:00pm). Even on my days off, I maintained this schedule and for the most part it has worked well. However, at the beginning of the school year (August, here in Arizona) things get a bit crazy with my daughter’s after school sports. We’ve got practices and games, traveling, and late nights…not to mention it’s usually 110 degrees that time of year, and I work out in a home gym in my garage which has no air conditioning. Working out in the extreme heat tends to affect my performance. Additionally, during the pandemic, my daughter has been home alone while both her father and I continue to work outside the home. I’ve been coming home from work and heading straight to the garage for my workout and was not really spending any time with her until 6:00pm most days. She was lonely and I was starting to feel that pull to adjust my schedule accordingly. However, moving a 60+ minute workout into the morning, when I am already working early and getting up early seemed a bit overwhelming (which is why I had never tried to change it). I decided to come up with a way to slowly wean myself into morning workouts, so it felt less drastic and more gradual. With the goal of moving my workout time to the morning, I set my first 10% effort task: add a 7-minute HIIT workout to my morning routine[2] (7 minutes = approximately 10% of my normal workout time).
Goal #2 (Nutrition): I then looked over my nutrition habits and identified some areas that could use tweaking to better support my workout load and body composition goals. My second 10% effort task was to increase protein intake by 10% (adding about 10g of protein a day).
Goal #3 (Bonus): And because everything is better in threes, I threw one more goal in there: increase daily step count 10% (an increase of about 1,000 steps a day).
Time Frame: I chose a time frame of 36 days which represents 10% of the year and committed to the daily actions for the 36 days. It was important that none of these actions were restrictive. I did not reduce calories or other macronutrients to accommodate the increase in protein consumption, and I did not remove any other workouts to accommodate for the addition of a short morning workout. I did not change anything else in my routine. Over the 36 days I logged the experience so I could share it with you in complete transparency (it wasn’t all rainbows and glitter). Below I share the most noteworthy points from the 36 days.
Day 1: Changing into active wear for a 7-minute workout was a little annoying, but sweating it out in my pajamas didn’t seem reasonable, so I changed clothes, laced up my shoes, and set the timer for this short HIIT workout. It was easy to fit this into the morning and didn’t affect my morning routine otherwise. I didn’t need to wake up earlier or adjust much else.
Day 6: Having my morning coffee then changing into active wear was now “routine”. It was just the next thing I do as part of the morning and didn’t seem inconvenient or out of place. By day 6, a new habit was formed.
Day 8: Was motivated and energized and felt like I could have done more than the 7-minute workout. Decided to add a short 1-mile walk/jog (about 10 minutes).
Day 9: The exercises in the HIIT routine became noticeably easier. I was able to do more reps within the time frame and it felt less challenging overall. In doing this one short morning workout, my body was getting stronger and adjusting to the new stimulus.
Day 11: The first (and only) day I missed my protein goal. I didn’t lament over it (“there’s no such thing as failure, only feedback” –Precision Nutrition), just shrugged it off and determined to plan better the next day to ensure I met the goal (I’ve got the rest of my life, so why stress over one day?).
Day 12: The first day I did a full morning workout. I did the 7-minute HIIT routine four times and added a mile jog. I then began working out 30 minutes every morning (in addition to my normal afternoon workout). It seemed natural and easy, and I didn’t feel like I was torturing myself. In fact, I liked being able to get a lot of my steps in before the day really began—one less thing to think about throughout the day.
Day 15: My body hurt a lot this day. I didn’t do the HIIT workout in the morning, but in the spirit of maintaining morning activity I did take a walk. I completed the HIIT workout later in the afternoon so I could at least tick that box for the day.
Day 16: The first day I moved my normal afternoon weight-lifting workout to the morning. I had to wake up a little earlier, but it seemed manageable as I had gradually been waking up a few minutes earlier each day for the two weeks prior. From this day on I have continued to do the weight-lifting workout in the morning with no issues. It took 6 days to create a new habit (morning workout), 12 days to do a full morning workout (30+ minutes), and 16 days to get to the point where my original goal was obtained (moving the weight-lifting 60+ minute workout to the morning). I also continued to do the HIIT workout, only now I used it as a warm-up.
Day 23: Experienced an auto-immune flare, feeling very fatigued with a lot of pain and swelling. As I’ve learned dealing with chronic illness, I have to listen to my body, so I started slowly with a walk and completed my HIIT routine but took a rest from the weightlifting.
Days 25 & 26: The only two days during the 36 day challenge I did not complete the HIIT workout. I still did my normal weight-lifting workout and got my steps in as usual but didn’t worry too much about missing the HIIT routine. I was still experiencing an auto-immune flare and high impact exercises generally exasperate the pain, so I took a break from them. Challenge or not, we must show ourselves grace and listen to our bodies. Sometimes rest is the best “workout” we can do.
Day 36: Completed my final HIIT workout for the challenge and took my “after” photo to compare to Day 1.
Summary: Setting small reasonable goals ultimately allowed me to stay consistent through the 36 days, and even though I missed my protein goal one day, and the HIIT workout two days, it had extraordinarily little effect on the outcome. I was able to painlessly accomplish the goal of moving my workout to the mornings, easily reached my step goal each day, and hit the mark with protein intake 97% of the time.
You can see from the summary of the step data, my average steps increased significantly more than I had aimed for. I contribute this to being more mindful of movement overall, and more deliberate with adding a walk every day. No matter how bad I was feeling, I could always muster up a walk. Most importantly, I was able to develop new habits that are so much a part of my day it doesn’t feel like “work”, it’s just what I do. At no time during the 36 days did I think, “I can’t wait for this to be over so I can go back to normal!” It was, in all honesty, easy. As an added bonus I got in the habit of adding a little extra workout to my day, so even though I now do the weight-lifting workout in the morning, I usually do something in the afternoon as well, only this time I’m doing it with my daughter instead of alone in the garage. We’ve gone on several walks and have enjoyed spending more active time together as a family, now that my afternoons are freed up.
Surprising Note: One unexpected note you may not have picked up from the pictures, I gained 4lbs! I don’t make a habit of weighing myself because I have learned over the years the scale is about the least reliable source of progress measurement. I was curious, though, when I noted some inches lost in a few areas and pants getting looser. I share this with you (especially the ladies!) to encourage you to ditch the scale. Look to performance goals, strength goals, how your clothes feel, how you feel when you look in the mirror, energy levels, and other more subjective goals. Imagine if I was obsessing over my weight? I would have missed out on all the amazing things I accomplished in the 36 days like achieving new personal records in squats, overhead presses, and chin-ups, or tightening up that last bit of loose skin leftover from a 75lb weight loss. If I allow the scale to dictate my “success” rate, then by all accounts you could say I “failed” the 36-day challenge. But in life there is no success or failure, only feedback, and I know from how I feel, look, and what I experienced that I have made much progress towards my goals (not just for myself, but for my family and time spent together). So please, stop looking to the scale and start looking at the big picture of overall health and wellness.
Conclusion: I did all of this for a couple of reasons. 1) I wanted to see for myself if 10% effort was enough to see results, and 2) I always like to put myself through what I’m asking of my clients. I didn’t want to launch a challenge without first experiencing the benefits of it.
I hope you are encouraged to know you don’t need to overhaul your life overnight, you can make small simple changes one by one to get big results. Whether the results are physical or emotional (or both), you can make progress towards your goals with as little as 10% effort. No matter what your fitness level or experience, we all can do “just a little better”. Maybe you’re a seasoned athlete, but your nutrition isn’t where you’d like it to be, perhaps there’s room for a 10% improvement. Maybe you haven’t done a workout beyond clicking the TV remote in the last twenty years, but you realize you could probably throw 10% effort at moving just a little bit more. Maybe the only vegetables you get in your diet are French fries, and you’d like to add something green to your day. What goals do you have (and why [3]) and what small simple steps could you take to get a little closer to them? Whether you choose to work with a coach or not, I hope you will at least take one thing away from this: 10% effort is enough to make lasting habit changes.
2- https://youtu.be/bDjeRqqQu2A (7-Minute HIIT Workout)
3- https://www.freedomgals51.com/post/what-s-your-why
Rebecca was a Precision Nutrition Certified Nutrition Coach, an A.C.E. Certified Personal Trainer, an A.C.E.Fitness Nutrition Specialist, an A.C.E. Sports Conditioning Specialist, and an A.C.E. Youth Fitness Specialist. She first earned her Personal Training certification with A.C.E. (American Council on Exercise) in 2002. She has been in and out of the "Health & Fitness" industry for nearly two decades. She also spent two years as a dietetic student at ASU & EMCC. She now blogs about her experiences with the health and fitness industry, eating disorders, lifestyle modification, weight loss, and nutrition for chronic disease, wellness, and longevity.
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