I was really struck by “How did I get here“‘s post on wanting to lose weight, and setting out a plan to do so.
It’s so strongly related to the same discipline and habit-forming required to get out of debt, I’d thought I’d list the similarities.
Determination
Nothing happens without willpower. You have to have a desire for change, any sort of change.
- To lose weight, you need to tell yourself: I need to be _____ thinner.
- To get out of debt, you need to tell yourself: I need to be debt-free.
Plan and a Deadline
A goal is useless without a plan and a deadline. It’s just a wishful dream at that point.
Something realistic so you don’t give up when you don’t meet your goals, and something slightly challenging.
- To lose weight, you need a plan: exercise, eating less calories, losing 5 pounds a month.
- To get out of debt you also need a plan: the budget and a deadline
Tracking and Execution
Now the hardest part: execution and tracking progress.
The plan and the determination can be strong and even easy to bring together, but the actual execution of your said plan can be difficult.
- To lose weight, many people count calories or watch their junk food consumption.
- To get out of debt, people track their expenses against their budget.
Treats
When you reach milestones, treat yourself to something reasonable.
- For losing weight: A new top or new pants in a smaller size, or a SMALL craving.
- For getting out of debt: That purchase you’ve been saving aside for.
Motivation
Having a support group is such a great way to stay on track.
- For losing weight: A friend who also wants to lose weight, or eat healthier.
- For getting out of debt: A friend who has a financial goal to meet as well, or online communities.
The Same Habits are Formed
Both personal finance and fitness use the same habits.
You have to use your willpower and exercise your discipline to be able to grow stronger in the face of temptation, if it shows up in the shape of a cupcake or that new car you’re lusting after.
I read a similar theme in a lot of my personal finance books, that there seemed to be a definite correlation between millionaires and their weight. They equated the same disciplines to be exercised in both — gaining wealth and staying fit.
One millionaire even said that if he didn’t get up every morning to exercise for an hour, he wouldn’t be able to feel energized or ready to tackle the day at his business.
10,000 Hours vs 1000 Hours
Of course, both getting out of debt, gaining wealth and losing weight to stay fit wouldn’t exist without some hard work.
It takes about 10,000 hours to be good at something, and 18 days (I think) to form a habit.
If you do an activity 18 days in a row, apparently you’re so used to the routine, you’ll stick to it.
Personally, I say it takes one thousand hours to form a habit.
Why? Well I’ve done activities 18 days in a row only to slack off on the 19th.
1000 hours however, means if you worked out an hour every single day for a year, you’d be up to 365, and you’d have that habit down PAT in less than 3 years.
In the instance of money management, it took me about 3 years to get to this point, where I feel comfortable enough with my spending and saving, that I am finally relaxed about my money.
3 years = 1095 hours
It’s a habit now. I can’t go without doing any or all of the following in a week:
- following a budget
- looking at my spending for the month
- checking my investments daily
- read the news on my investments and adjust accordingly
- reconciling my credit card to make sure I don’t miss any transactions
- get receipts for everything I spend
- enter said receipts
- project my budget for next month
- project my spending for next year
- reading money blogs and getting inspired by so many
The above is at least 7 hours a week, not including all the darn blogging I do about money 🙂
If I were to lose weight, I suppose I’d follow the same workout regime which would be about 7-10 hours a week:
- watching my calorie intake for the day
- reading labels
- cutting back on oils, fats, salt and sugar
- re-training my body to eat healthier (slowly)
- cooking at home to control portions & oils rather than eating out
- bringing snacks I made to work
- avoiding junk food
- going to the gym daily for an hour (or in my case, walking for an hour)
- not going into restaurants/junk food meccas to be tempted
- walking rather than taking my car if I can (I consider 5km and under to be easily walkable)
- taking the stairs instead of the elevator
- getting inspired/motivated by reading fitness blogs
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
I am sure it takes me much longer to form a habit than 18 days or 28 days. I've tried before, and find that even after the time period I will easily fall off track. At least, if something disrupts my routine (travel or having visitors, both happen often!).
I agree whole heartedly with your comparison between weight loss and personal spending. In fact when I was wondering to myself if I could track expenses with your spreadsheet, I had to remind myself that I recently lost 40 lbs by making a daily recording of my calorie intake! The only real difference is that my weight goal was easy to identify (pre-pregnancy weight), while I need to do a little more work to identify a clear financial goal.
I say 1000 hours. 🙂
I think tracking expenses and tracking your progress can be both motivating and disheartening. I remember when I was in debt, I used to think: how much longer?
I've often thought when I'm writing posts on 'how to' get out of debt to make a sidebar that says: 'Can also be applied if trying to lose weight.'
I agree with creating a habit takes about 1000 hrs BUT what I also find is I plan for change. If I don't often that habit goes away with other things taking it's place. For example, to keep in shape I run. I run outside because it's cheap and easy and I can do it pretty much whenever I want. I don't like running when it's below 32 degrees. If I don't plan for that I find myself not exercising for weeks. Starting in Nov. I start looking for interesting fitness classes and sign up. I do that until the weather is nice.
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*LAUGH*! That\’s a good idea.
Oh I agree. Planning for change is a good idea. I need to force myself to do yoga when I get home today.
The first thing I did when I read your post was equate 1000 hours to actual days (I only used 16 hours per day, because nights don’t count). So, really, you’re looking at forming a healthy habit in just over 62 days. That equates to two months’ time… Yes, I would say that is enough time to get into a good habit, as long as you’re consistent. I’m not into rewarding myself that much, so I would knock the treats out. If it’s a habit, it should be something you do without needing reward (according to Ms. Know-it-all, aka: Me—LOL). I think the most important part to attaining both of these goals is to set out a definite way of tracking progress. For instance, walk/run 30 minutes and spend 15 minutes dealing with finances every day. They are simple, not much effort, and you’ll get into a daily habit, that you can easily amend later.
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Your calculations make sense, but.. we aren\’t practicing yoga or doing whatever it is for 16 hours a day. 🙂
This is why 3 years makes more sense. I wasn\’t thinking about budgeting 16 hours a day, I had work, school or whatever else, and it\’s the same for exercising, dieting.
Unless you mean your mindset, but that was something I didn\’t factor in.
Thanks for the shout out FB! I talk about the relation between the 'weight-loss diet' and the ‘financial diet' all the time. You are absolutely right- for both you have to have a plan and more importantly execute and follow-up. As far as creating a habit… I’ll have to do some more testing on that one (#epicfail) I was 4 pounds away from my goal weight and it took me about 3 months to get there… then I starting to slip on my workout routine and starting gaining the weight back and stopped working out. So much for the habit sticking. :-/ I'll let you know when I come up with a better plan!
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I've been working on trying to form better habits lately- for me, it definitely takes longer to form (or break) some habits than others. I find it easier to form habits like checking facebook/twitter/google reader every time I sit down at the computer than habits like tracking ALL of my spending (that one took a while!) or working out on a regular basis (still working on that one…)
I came across this recently (though it's an old post) http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/09/how-long-to-form… – it talks about how different habits take different times to form, and different people form habits differently.
Really great comparison between losing weight and getting out of debt!
ooo! What a great article.
I\’ve still yet to accomplish anything in the yoga arena. I need to make it a priority.
I was just thinking about this today at the gym. I saw the regulars vs the New Year crowd. The regulars are always there every week and the New Year crowd only last until about March. You just have to stick with a program until it becomes a routine. I don't know how long this take. 3 years sounds like a long time, but maybe that's the right number.
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For me, it was 3 years. For others, 3 months. It depends on the person but it took me 3 years to form a budgeting habit.
I've been finding a lot of pf bloggers either simultaneously or subsequently move to fitness as another way to reach goals. Maybe once you start improving your financial life you look to other areas that need improvement? For me, once I started feeling like I was getting somewhere with my financial frame of mind (still working on the debt!), I wanted to make my whole life healthy.
Perhaps. Or you see that you CAN do it in one area so you apply it to others 🙂
I\’m already \”fit\”, I\’m just not flexible, hence my yoga resolution this year.
Hmm…I'm not sure how long it takes to form a habit. I would say maybe 3 months?
In 2002, I found myself at 182 lbs. Now. I didn't get there overnight, and in fact, I was fat for probably 4.5 years and over 170 lbs (at 5'2") for at least 3 years. I never thought I could lose weight. Tried Weight Watchers, realized how out of control my portion sizes were, and the rest was history.
I lost 57 lbs. But for about 3 months (March to May), I had to be super vigilant. No wine. No eating out. I counted every calorie. It really worked. AFTER that time, I could introduce eating out and wine (but still counted the points). But I could do it without going back to my old habits. I could have chips OR a beer if I went out for Mexican food, but not both. And dinner was a single taco and a side of black beans, not two enchiladas, beans, rice, chips, and guac. If you eat out once a month or two, you can eat what you want. If you eat out more frequently, you have to be careful.
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Like any new habit though, it's easy to slide backwards. When I started trying to get pregnant, the stress put 20 lbs back on me – "I can't diet if I'm pregnant". Eventually (after a year), I realized that it was stupid, I might never GET pregnant. I had lost 10 of them when I got pregnant. It took 2 years before I could lose the last 20 lbs of baby weight. Full time job, nursing, pumping, not sleeping…I didn't start losing until I switched to part time.
I've found that weight loss, serious weight loss, is like a part-time job, and you have to approach it as such. It is what worked for me both times. It can easily be 2 hours per day, when you add up exercise, planning the exercise (packing a bag for the gym, for example), planning healthy meals, adding up the calories, packing the healthy lunches. It gets easier as time goes on, but it's still…time.
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I've also found that it's very very hard to lose 5 lbs. I gained 5 lbs on a vacation 2 years ago, and it never left. I'm fine with that 5 lbs (it's a good weight for me). But I gained 5 lbs after vacation this year too. And while I'm still at a healthy weight, it is NOT a safe trend to gain 5 lbs every 2 years. So I am working on it. But the problem is that it only takes 1 month to lose 5 lbs, and the new habits aren't quite formed in 1 month.
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And keeping in the right, motivational mindset right? 🙂 Congrats!
For me it was 3 years to make it a habit that I don\’t think about.
Can anyone recommend decent weight loss blogs? I'm having trouble finding the good ones.
What are you looking for? Foodie? Motivational? Maybe I can ask around.
For me reading the book Your Money or Your Life sorry I do not remember the authors names but, it really helps and most of what you stated in your post is what they say as well along with where to invest your money and how to save etc. I really recommend it to folks.
I am happy/relieved to see that it can in fact take 3 years or so to really make and see that change from bad habits to good. It took me three years to get my spending under control and, as you say, feel comfortable about saving and not spending wastefully. I started at the beginning of 2008. To this day, I still read blogs that make it sound easy to 'take a month to stop hoarding' or 'take six weeks to completely change your financial attitude' and even though I felt like an inadequate failure for not being able to do that, I plugged away anyway and got to where I am now ~ three years later 🙂 I can honestly say that I have my spending under control, that my savings are blossoming and that I no longer hoard. Now…. about that weight lol
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No freaking way. 6 weeks? I\’d call you crazy if you told me 6 weeks would do it.
3 YEARS. And I\’m still kind of making mistakes. 🙂 Don\’t feel bad. We\’re all growing.
What a wonderful analgoy to these twin, habit forming, activities. Love it!
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It sounds like a good plan, but big changes can set you off course. We made a cross country move a couple years ago and my exercise routine was demolished after that. It took me a long while to get back into it.
I do agree though about the more time spent toward an activity the more likely you will stay invested. People get used to routine.
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Agreed. I find that if I go on vacation and I CAN\’T do something, then I get lazy.
I find budgeting to be MUCH easier than losing weight. I've got some health issues that require me to lose weight, and I'm struggling at the 15 pound mark. For me, food is so much more tempting than stuff. Even on a super strict budget, I would allow food to be my indulgence (who doesn't want that slice of cake, after all?), since food is a necessity for life.
The budget took about 3 months to fully finalize (figure out how much needed to be in it for me to pay down my debt and get myself on track, then it was all about maintenance. However, until my loan was paid off, I was super vigilant about everything. So perhaps I'm looking at weight loss wrong, since although I do my exercising, I suck at counting calories. I guess it's time to be vigilant about the calories – it's just so much more time consuming!
That\’s true. I never considered that!
When I was younger, my cousin told me it takes 28 days to form a habit and I find that rings true for me. If I repeat an activity for a solid month, I tend to stick to it. My problems start when I don't do it for just as long 🙂
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I'll have to try that solid month thing. Somehow I think my minimum is 3-6 months. *sigh*
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