18 Ways to Habit Stacking for Weight Loss

Let’s face it. Creating new habits is extremely difficult especially so when it comes to weight loss where you will need to make several long-term changes. It requires developing healthy habits in most areas of your life including your sleep schedule, diet, fitness, and others. Meanwhile, you know that the other habits that you have already established like eating thrice a day, taking a bath, or winding down before you go to sleep all come naturally to you so that you don’t have to make a conscious effort to make sure you do them. This is where habit stacking comes to the rescue by allowing you to attach and combine new habits with your established ones.

Habit stacking is the next big thing to making healthier habits permanent in your life so that weight loss can also become long-term. It is a method that allows you to build new habits out of your established habits. It is much like booting your computer up – a new habit – while making coffee in the morning – your usual routine. Certified Personal Trainer, Rachel MacPherson is a Radical Strength weight loss health coach. She explains that you will have more chances at success if you link a new habit that you desire to develop with an already established one. This is in comparison with linking a new healthy habit with other cues or with particular times of the day.

Ways to Stack Habits and Lose Weight

Thinking about losing weight and looking good is easy but working it out to make it happen is hard. Weight loss takes time and solid planning. If you want to stay consistent, your efforts have to be in sync with the flow of your everyday life and should not result in too much disruption. Habit stacking can make this possible for you by helping you create weight loss habits that are also incorporated within the structure of your existing daily routine. Unlike your usual fad diet or fierce workout regimens, stacking healthy habits are all about sustainability. It helps you to build a lifestyle out of your weight loss efforts – one that you can maintain for the long haul.

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• Build it one a time

How long do you think it takes to build a habit and make it permanent? There is a lot of debate around this issue but some believe that 21 days is enough to make a habit permanent. Meanwhile, other people think it will take a few months. Phillippa Lally conducted a study and it was released in the European Journal of Social Psychology. What was found was that it takes somewhere between 18 to 254 days for a habit to become permanent with the average playing at 66 days. This tells you that there is no fixed schedule for building a habit. Furthermore, habit building and stacking has to be done one habit at a time if you plan to strengthen it and make it a part of your lifestyle. In this way, you can focus on just one action to turn into a habit and make it easy on yourself to stick to the same stacks. You know when it is time to move on to a new stack when you have stopped thinking about a certain action as a habit that you need to build because it has already become a natural part of your day to day activities. So build only 1 habit at a time, make it a permanent behavior, and then add a new habit. No need to worry about a specific timeline or completing them on schedule as it will differ from one person to the next and from one habit to the other.

• Meditate while your organic coffee or tea is brewing

When you start your day with brewing your coffee or tea, you probably are doing something else while waiting. But since you are trying to lose weight by starting your day right, then do some meditation while brewing. MacPherson recognizes that mindfulness meditation is especially beneficial in keeping your stress levels at bay. Do not forget that high stress levels are associated with thicker waist lines. So instead of doing something stressful while brewing, go for a mindfulness meditation and take it easy. Take time to relax your mind and check in on yourself and your overall wellness. When you take care of yourself first, you become strong enough to support your weight loss efforts all through the day.

• Get it started with a 5-minute block

One of the best ways to jump-start a habit is to block time to do it for 5 minutes. Stephen Guise wrote the book Mini Habits and one valuable lesson that can be gleaned from it relates to making learning a new habit simplest that you stick to it. For instance, if you plan on writing a novel, you have to develop the habit of writing a paragraph each day. While you can do more than that, starting to write is always a challenge. As such, making a simple, doable goal of 1 paragraph each day will help you get into the habit of writing because it can be easily achieved without feeling the pressure of writing numerous pages of the book at once. When you are done with it, you can consider it as a task completed for the day and inspire you to do more and then do it again tomorrow. The idea is to have something to get you going on the habit so you end up doing more consistently. If you think that condensing it in 5 minutes won’t be enough, you can always add more once you’ve got it going.

• While plating your food, log your meal

In weight loss, healthy portions is a must so when you are plating your food, fill half of it with fruits and veggies first. MacPherson attests that consuming more produce items allows for a low-calorie diet that is rich in nutrients, including the fiber that helps with weight management and making you feel full. While you’re at it, take the time to log the meal in apps like MyFitnessPal. You will be ensured that you can keep your portions at a healthy level and be able to track your consumption this way.

• Prepare your workout attire while getting dressed

Getting dressed is an everyday thing and what better way to stack a habit than to prepare your workout attire while you are having a change of clothes. You can do this while you change in the morning for work or when you get into your favorite pajamas at night. The change of clothes will be your cue to prep your gym stuff and pack them in your bag so you are ready to go at any time. This will remind you every day that exercise is of equal importance with all your other weight loss efforts. Set your gym bag aside and put it where you can easily see it and pick it up as you go.

• Don’t ever break the chain

Back in the days, receiving a chain letter can be annoying especially when you are asked not to break it or otherwise suffer the consequences. If you are trying to lose weight however, it is critical not to break the chain of your habit stacks. Jerry Seinfeld is a popular comedian who gave a budding comedian a relevant habit-related advice. Jerry said that one should not miss a day creating new material no matter the mood. He himself marks his calendar with a big X each day he writes a material even if it’s just one. What’s important is not to break the chain and to do it every single day. You wouldn’t want to see a day without an X in there because it often takes some prepping up and mind-setting before you can get back to your groove. The same principle holds true with habit stacking and you have to create a daily goal that is doable then achieve it no matter what. Do not let your internal conversations talk you out of it. Let more red X’s on your calendar be your source of motivation and encourage you to eliminate any of your usual, seemingly valid excuses. If you miss a day, you will tend to regularly lose a day when you are feeling depressed, overwhelmed, or tired. Strengthen your reserve, do it no matter what, and do not ever break the chain.

• Go for walks after meals

You notice how you feel sleepy and sluggish after eating? MacPherson explains that after meals, you can experience blood sugar spikes that make you feel tired. What’s worse is that it does not really help with making you healthy or managing your weight. This is especially true when you have been working all morning at your desk. Hours spent sitting down has been associated with obesity, metabolic dysfunction, and lowered insulin sensitivity. Consequently, if you want to lose weight, this particular habit stack is important as it allows you to move to better your health. After eating, say when you break for lunch, squeeze in some light exercise such as walking. A 10 to 20-minute walk can make a lot of difference in building activity into your day instead of just sitting down and being sedentary. Leisurely walks with a family member, a friend, or your pet is likewise encouraged after you enjoy your dinner. Go for a walk after a meal and stack this habit into your everyday routine. Should you not have enough time after meals, you can set an alarm that will go off every 15 to 30 minutes of after you finish a particular task or a meeting to remind you to stand up and just move around. Ultimate Performance personal trainer Eric Bowling recognizes the importance of adding in movements or any body-weight exercise to your busy day to help you lose weight.

• Make small wins your main focus

The magic behind habit stacking is in its simplicity and achievability. When you make it easy on yourself, you are increasing the likelihood of that habit becoming a permanent part of you. As such, build habits that do not require too much from you as the small wins are the ones which will build the emotional momentum of stacking habits consistently. Small wins are those that usually require little to no willpower such as weighing yourself, taking vitamins, filling your water bottle, or working on your routine daily. They all look too easy but that is exactly the point. The goal is to get started with some no-brainer activities and link them with your weight loss activity so you do not skip them for whatever reason including general busyness. Build your stack from simple actions that can be completed in a few minutes only. Spend weeks or as long as it takes until a particular stack is permanent and then link it to more habits. Achieving small wins help you stack habits that do not require effort but contribute to your weight loss greatly.

• Use triggers as cues or reminders

Cues are important in reminding you to complete specific actions. Cues are sometimes called triggers which you can anchor to a weight loss stack that you are trying to master. The sense of sight, smell, sound, taste, and touch are great to use as cues or triggers. With the numerous tasks that you need done each day, a reminder is very important so you can be pushed to take action. It is much like an alarm clock or the alarm on your mobile which you set to remind you of your scheduled tasks. There are 2 kinds of triggers that can help you out as you stack habits. The first one refers to external triggers that are found in your outside environment such as a Post-it note, an alarm, or a push notification. The second one is called an internal trigger which refers to the thoughts and feelings that you relate with your established habits like when you wake up and immediately check on your social media accounts. It is imperative that you know the difference between the two triggers especially the internal ones as they help you understand which ones may be detrimental to your personal growth. Otherwise, use triggers generously so you are able to promote consistency with your stacks.

• Plan your meals before or after you go grocery shopping

Meal prepping may not be your strongest suit but you need to develop this habit for the sake of long-term weight loss. It can take your time but once you get used to it and be able to develop the stack, you will be very grateful with the benefits it brings. The key is to be able to plan well and schedule it in. Take out a pad of paper and attach it to you ref or put in your purse. You can also go digital and simply use the notes in your mobile phone. Either way, before you go grocery shopping, take the time to plan your meals for the week. They have to be healthy choices of course and include fruits and veggies, complex carbs, healthy fats, and lean proteins. At the grocery, make sure to check off what’s on your list. At home, chop them up immediately and store them in manageable sizes, ready for the next meal or for snacking. Planning and shopping have to go together as a stack and make sure to keep to this routine consistently.

• Have your strategies ready in preparation for expected setbacks

The best way to deal with setbacks is to expect them but to have your strategies ready to counter them. You are bound to experience setbacks even with your most consistent habits. This can hold true even with those that you have been doing for a long time. Someone who has been running for years or decades and has made distance running a part of his lifestyle can encounter unexpected challenges. It can range from boredom, illnesses, dog attacks, multiple injuries, and life-threatening events. Certainly, you would think about quitting but you don’t. Instead, you use these incidents to motivate you and challenge you not to give up no matter what. By stacking habits and dealing with setbacks, you develop resiliency and confidence in yourself. So depending on how you deal with it, challenges are actually there to help you become stronger and show you how determined you really are at reaching your weight loss goal. Have your strategies in place when you fail to exercise one day or had too much dessert over the holidays. Instead of punishing yourself, get back on the horse the very next day and religiously get into the rhythm of your routine.

• Put your gym clothes on right after work

Habit stacking works best when tied to an activity that is already part of your regular routine. Each day, you either finish a task or happily go towards the end of a day or night at work. If you think about that one thing though that you often put off, going to the gym to work out might be at the top of your list. This is especially true when you schedule them after work and you are all tired – wanting to just go home or go out with friends. To change all that, you need a strong tactic such as putting on your workout clothes right after work when you are scheduled to go to the gym. Be consistent with it and also schedule recovery days when you require yourself to take some equally necessary breaks. In this way, you can program yourself to work hard but also look forward to recovery days. The key is to get past the temptation of putting off your workouts so it will be easier to bring yourself to the gym or whatever place you choose for your physical activities.

• Schedule your stacks right

Not all stacks are the same and in terms of frequency they can range from daily, weekly, to monthly. Assess how often you need them done but typically, daily is recommended when you are just starting to build the habit. Meanwhile, you can assign a stack for each of these frequencies or periods of time. Some stacks are check-in habits that are important but can be easily forgotten much like completing safety checks, planning fun activities, and looking at your credit card statements. They are all important but you tend to forget them or pass them by. It is better then, to put them into a routine scheduled activity to ensure that they get completed for the sake of your weight loss.

• Be very deliberate with your checklist

If you don’t have it already, then you should make a checklist as it is considered one of the most important parts of a stack. However, it is not just any other list as it has to follow a logical sequence of actions and that is has to be very detailed. The step by step sequence of your actions has to be spelled out in the list with the duration as to how long each one will be completed and where they need to be done. It can sound a bit obsessive this way, but the objective is to remove guesswork and zero in directly on what’s needs to be achieved. Put the actions together in such a way that they flow seamlessly and that they are easy for you to implement.

• Listen to something different when you workout

You have to do anything and everything to stick to a workout routine. One of the best ways to build a stack around it is to associate it with some new music, audio book, or podcast recording that you have been wanting to listen to. The goal is to make your workout more interesting and motivating as you indulge yourself in auditory pleasures while you are going through your routines. Workouts won’t be a drag anymore and instead become an enjoyable experience for you – enough that it will make you want to keep going for more.

• Always reward yourself

No matter how small, rewarding yourself is an essential part of habit stacking. Completing a routine is an achievement that calls for a reward. A reward is an external motivation that will push you to complete your routine daily. What can be considered rewarding is going to be different from one individual to the next, but it can range from watching your favorite series, indulging in a healthy snack, or simply enjoying the art of doing nothing. Choose a reward that is most motivating for you to strengthen a stack. One very important thing to remember though is that the reward should not eliminate the benefit of the habit that you are developing. For instance, you cannot reward yourself with a 500-calorie chocolate cake when you have just completed a series of actions to help you lose weight. That would definitely defeat the purpose of building stacks for weight loss. There are many ways to reward yourself that does not have anything to do food but are strongest in solidifying that particular habit.

• Go shopping but park farther than usual

If shopping is your favorite pastime, then this could be an opportunity for you to increase your activity level by parking far from the area. When you park, typically the first thing that comes to mind is to get a slot that is as near as possible. But if you want to lose weight and do so without disrupting much of your time, walking towards the mall, boutique, or grocery can become a very productive activity for you. This trick is very simple but very effective in adding extra steps to your day. Walking a longer distance increases your activity in a motivating manner when the destination ahead is a shopping haven.

• Keep repeating it

Repetition is key to habit stacking and you have to focus on the repetition especially in the first few days and weeks of building the stack. It is very important that you keep to your routine without fail. You might skip 1 to 2 small actions but consistency is important so complete the routine no matter what. The goal is to build muscle memory until these new routines become an ingrained part of you, much like drinking water every day. If all else fails and you miss it one day, just bounce back the next day. Setbacks happen on occasions. However, avoid missing it two days in a row as you will be making it hard on yourself to recover and get back to your routine. If you let this happen, you will get into the habit of doing cheat days every now and then.

Are you ready to lose weight, build muscle, or feel more fit? Join Beachbody On Demand, and get unlimited access to Beachbody’s world-famous programs, including 80 Day Obsession, Liift 4, 21 Day FIX®, Body Beast, Insanity, The WORK, Barre Blend, TurboFire, PiYo, P90X®, 21 Day Fix Extreme, T25 and 100’s more. Don’t miss out on your chance for amazing results. Sign up today! Take a FREE test drive for 14 days!