Quick answer: Consistency, not intensity, is what actually changes long-term health — “little and often” beats occasional heroic effort and carries far less injury risk. If you’re trying to build a healthy habit, three things help: make it easy and accessible, write it down, and speak to yourself as kindly as you would to a friend.
Consistency over intensity is a motto I try and instil in my patients, and indeed myself. What do I mean by this? Changing behaviours to be more health focused is hard. If it were easy, two thirds of the population wouldn’t be overweight. Improving fitness (and we can debate how we measure that) is the single biggest thing that will help us live longer and better quality lives.
I get asked all the time what is the best exercise, how much should I do and so on. The answer will be different for different people, but the key point is that it should be ideally enjoyable, but as a minimum, not awful for the person. I would much rather someone did 20 minutes of gardening twice a week, than going for a jog once a month for example. The benefits of ‘little and often’ compound over time, and getting injured becomes much less likely. Injuries and the resulting breaks from exercise in the over 50s are really important – you never quite seem to get back to where you were, and the scientific studies confirm this.
Why little and often beats going hard
I’m a very positive minded person, but even I’ve been feeling a bit self critical and negative about my own exercise this week. I usually like to plan my training in approximately 6 week spells, focusing on one particular area, but still doing some sessions in the other. For example, I might do many more weights sessions and only one bike or yoga per week, then flip it. The last few weeks have been nice and sunny for a change, and my 12 year old son has been really keen to play a few holes of golf in the evenings. For me this is one of the best times imaginable, I’m so lucky to have that. These will be the evenings I look back on when I’m old and grey with the fondest of memories.
And yet, I find myself feeling guilty that as a result I haven’t done a bike spinning class for 2 weeks! What an idiot! If I can get down on myself for such a stupid thing, I expect many others will be giving themselves a hard time for not doing this or that when they promised themselves they would.
Three ways to make change stick
Sound familiar? If you are struggling to incorporate some positive lifestyle change into your own life, please consider three things.
First, make it really easy and accessible, because you are far more likely to succeed. That is super important psychologically, and will help you set a new challenge for yourself having completed that one.
Second, write it down. Journalling is a really useful tool in a number of areas. It adds a degree of accountability (because the plan is no longer just in your head), and allows for positive feedback when you’ve completed the task.
Third, speak to yourself as if you were speaking to your best friend. This is particularly important if you tend to be self-critical. I tried this myself just now. If I were speaking to my best friend, I would say that the days of playing golf on a summer’s evening with your son won’t last forever. It’s still good exercise, especially carrying clubs, so give yourself a break and the spinning classes will have to wait!
So what can you do this week to take a small step towards improved fitness? Is there something you’ve been putting off? However small, I’ll bet there’s an option for you that will have you feeling that little bit better by the time you read next week’s blog.
In this week’s research video, I discuss a the first human trial of a new cholesterol drug. It’s clearly some way off, but gives an interesting insight into this space which has seen an explosion of options in recent years.
Have a great week everyone (and please let’s hope for a better England performance this afternoon!!)