Josko: Welcome back to the Kraken Power podcast. We’re your hosts Josko and Brandon. In today’s episode we’re going to be talking about the psychology of building healthy habits.
Now, everybody knows that in order to build healthy habits you have to become a different person. But what is that process in becoming that different person? What do you need to do in order to become that different person?
That’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Roll the intro. Welcome back to the Kraken Power podcast.
The one thing that I found that works the best with my clients is finding the one thing that’s the easiest to fix. That’s the lowest hanging fruit and then just making that small little change. So this can be something as simple as just like changing the type of cereal you’re eating.
Maybe even for a lot of people they see results just from switching from full sugar Coca-Cola to doing Diet Coke. But it’s finding that one low hanging fruit that makes the biggest difference. That’s called the limiting factor.
Brandon: Yeah, and people think that when you’re making this big change and like we’re saying in the intro, you’re becoming this new person that you need to like instantly go to the nth degree and just like change yourself. Go from black to white in one day, one time span. But realistically what’s going to build these healthy habits over time is if you start with something small and pick up the next thing and then the next thing and then that’s going to roll into the momentum and then before you know it, within 30, 60, 90 days, you’re already implementing these things that you wanted to and you were dreaming of, you know, maybe the year prior.
Josko: Yeah, for sure. You know, there’s this book. I forget the title of the book.
We’ll maybe drop it in the description. But he talks about how the reason why people gain weight, like the 5 to 10 pounds that people gain weight every single year. You know, it’s not like much.
Like one year you’re 150 pounds, the next year you’re 155. But then 10 years later, you’re 50 pounds heavier than you were. And people are like, how did this happen?
It wasn’t because you just started eating McDonald’s every day. It was because like one year you just started eating an extra apple a day, you know. Or maybe you started putting cream instead of milk in your coffee because you thought it would taste better.
And then boom, the year goes by and you’re 5 to 10 pounds heavier just from that one tiny change. So the goal is just to do the inverse, you know. What is the one small change that can have the biggest impact that’s not even that hard to change?
Like adding an extra, like let’s say for some of our clients that come to us, they do like 1,500 steps in a day, you know. Like they literally come to us and we’re like, oh, let’s see, how many steps did you have today? And they’re like, oh, 1,500.
It’s like 6 p.m. and they have like 800. You’re like, oh, so you went to the washroom.
Brandon: Barely.
Josko: You have the cup right beside their chair. And so it’s like if you went from 1,500 to 2,500, that would probably be a massive difference. You’re doing like 30% more activity in a day.
So 30% more activity, you could see some really good results. Like I’m not even kidding.
Brandon: But people are going to be like, no, that’s not enough. I have to do 10,000. I got to start at 10,000.
Yeah, exactly. When you’re going from 1,000 to 10,000, that’s literally 10Xing it.
Josko: And then it just becomes unsustainable, you know. You do it for five days and then you’re like, oh, like I liked my old life better when I was doing this. Yeah.
But there’s tons of people who do 10,000 steps. But I guarantee you they didn’t just do it overnight.
Brandon: Yeah, and I think that kind of plays into a little bit of everyone’s expectations too. Like when you try to do a big drastic change, you’re going to be disappointed if you don’t hit it, right? But if you can do the small limiting factor, maybe that’s like, again, the small little step up goal.
Like you said, go from like 2,000 to 3,000 steps. And you achieve that, you’re going to get a sense of achievement. And that’s going to make you want to go even a little bit further the next day and a little bit further the next day.
Until before, you know what, you’re at that 10,000 mark.
Josko: Yeah. It’s like, let’s say if you’re trying to wake up earlier. It doesn’t have to just be applicable to just losing weight or adding an activity.
It could also be like waking up earlier. So like let’s say if you are waking up at 9 p.m. and you want to start waking up at 6 a.m. If you go from 9, sorry, if you’re waking up at 9 a.m. and you want to go to 6 a.m., if you go straight to 6 a.m., you’re going to be so tired. But if you slowly like half an hour earlier, half an hour earlier for like weeks, then 6 a.m. is not going to be that bad. And it’s going to be like maybe six weeks later you’re waking up at 6 a.m. Get ready for daylight savings. Versus if you just jump straight into it, it’s just going to make it so hard. So yeah, that’s what I always try to do is like find the limiting factor when like just have conversations with my clients.
Try not to make drastic changes. Try just like what’s the one small thing that we can do.
Brandon: Yeah. And you have a pretty good story about your client who changed his cereal too, right?
Josko: Yeah. So that was actually my friend. He’s also a personal trainer.
He got his client to lose 25 pounds by just changing his cereal over time. It didn’t happen instantly, but it happened over time. So basically what happened was he saw that he was eating like Lucky Charms or something every single day.
And he’s like, holy crap, like how long have you been doing this? And he’s like 10 years. And the guy had needed to lose like a considerable amount of weight.
And so he said, okay, well, you know, let’s swap this out with something healthier. Can you do like oatmeal in the morning? He’s like, no, man, I can’t.
Like I can only do Lucky Charms. He’s like, I’ve been eating it for 10 years. And then he’s like, oh, man, like is it possible for you to switch to like this other cereal that has like less calories, like Special K or something?
And he’s like, okay, yeah, maybe I could give that a try. He gave it a try for like four weeks and he lost five pounds.
Brandon: Crazy.
Josko: Yeah. And then he kept going and they kept changing the type of cereal that he was eating until finally he was like down 25 pounds. And he like agreed that like he can do the oatmeal now, you know?
It was like a process where it’s like, oh, okay, well, can you do like rice puffs and then milk and then put some berries inside? He was like, oh, okay, yeah. And then finally it’s like, can you do oatmeal?
And it’s like, yes, I can do oatmeal. But that happened over the course of a long period of time, lost a ton of weight, barely made any changes to his life. Like just literally the brand of cereal and just a lower calorie option of it.
That’s it. If he’s eating for 10 years, do you think he’s got all the prizes out of the box? Yeah.
He probably wore some good money. Yeah. If he keeps the box in mint condition.
Brandon: Yeah.
Josko: Yeah. But, yeah, so it’s an easy way for you to see results. So just finding those little tiny tweaks that you can make makes a huge difference.
Brandon: Yeah. And I think that one thing that we advocate for at Kraken, at the very bare minimum, if you’re going to start like tracking for weight loss, let’s say, right? A lot of people think it’s going to be like, oh, it’s going to be way too much for me to just start weighing all of my food out, punching in all my macros into these sheets.
So like the very bare minimum thing we get all of our clients to do is like, hey, could you track your body weight every single day? And if you could track your body weight every single day, you’re going to inherently make different life choices throughout the day that are going to push you towards that goal. And we find that when our clients go away on vacation, all we ask them to do is just track their body weight.
And you’ll see that they either maintain their weight or they actually like lose weight over time.
Josko: Yeah, for sure. So the next thing is having some sort of reward circuit. So basically, a lot of people, they dive into some sort of new activity and they have zero rewards for it.
And everybody says like, oh, reward yourself for working hard. And it’s like, you know, what do you what should you do? Oh, like buy yourself like a watch or something.
You know, you lost 10 pounds like you should go eat some restaurant or whatever. Right. But what you should be doing is rewarding yourself real time and talking to yourself and saying like, wow, that this feels so good.
I love doing this and I want to do this because it feels so good. Like that’s the real time reward that you’re getting. Right.
And I think a lot of people, they miss this and they talk to themselves negatively. Instead, they say like how hard it is and how difficult it may be. And then therefore, you’re cuing yourself and you’re rewarding yourself in a negative way.
Like you’re saying like, I don’t like this. I’m not going to do this. This is too hard.
And therefore, you’re just not going to be able to have long term routine of whatever you’re trying to accomplish.
Brandon: The funny thing is like humans work exactly like animals. And you’ll see this all the time done in research studies where you’re trying to have some kind of stimulus. Right.
And then you’re trying to make an experiment and you’re seeing what does the animal do at the end of it? Like classical conditioning realistically. Right.
And so you can use this to build your habits. Right. So I always think of this as like a science experiment on yourself.
Right. Let’s say we go back to the example of you waking up in the morning. Right.
So you have what you’re trying to the variable that you’re trying to introduce. You’re trying to have a certain effect and then you also want to associate it with some kind of reward at the end of it. Right.
So in our example here, you wake up early. Yeah. You might feel a little bit tired, but you might be like, wow, I got so much stuff done in that time that I was usually sleeping.
And that makes me feel really good and productive for the rest of the day. It sets myself up for success. And by the end of the day, when I get off work, I have more time with my family.
That’s a huge reward. And if you think about it in this way for all the little habits that you’re doing, you’re going to want to go back to the well and you’re going to want to do that more and more each time.
Josko: Yeah. And so this is just so funny that you brought up animals because it just makes me think about like, you know, have you ever seen those tests where they like are testing a crow or something and they’re like, oh, if you hit the pink circle, then you get a treat, you know, and then the crow keeps hitting the pink circle and then they throw like different shades of pink and it knows exactly which pink color to touch or whatever.
I don’t know if it was a crow or whatever animal was pretty smart. It’s just a reward pathway. It’s like, oh, if I do this, then I get this.
And you just keep doing that over and over again until, yeah, it just becomes ingrained, you know. And so there’s also the crocodiles or alligators. I can’t remember where somewhere in Thailand that they started pretending to drown.
So they would like lift up their little like paws and do this. And then like people would see it in this like a silhouette of that. And they think that it’s somebody drowning.
So then they go and swim up to it. Well, they know it’s a crocodile there. He eats it.
He eats the human. And it’s crazy because this is a freaking crocodile, you know. Like you just look at a crocodile and you’re like, it must be dumb.
It’s got healthier habits than most people. Like how did it learn to pretend to drown? You know, it’s like whenever I lay on my back like this and just like wave my arms like a human comes.
I get a reward. I get a meal. Yeah.
And so that happened.
Brandon: That’s crazy.
Josko: Yeah. It’s like. Is that true?
Yeah, that’s true. Well, actually, I don’t know if it’s true. I saw it on like Twitter or something.
Okay. We just hope that humans have been conditioned not to go. Yeah.
So the humans now like they look in binoculars and they see the claws and they’re like, oh, that’s a crocodile.
Brandon: Just poke it with a stick first. Come on. Yeah.
But, you know, also when we’re talking about rewards as well, like we don’t always have to think about giving ourselves like physical rewards, right? We can trick our brain into thinking like it’s a good feeling or it’s a sense of accomplishment. You don’t actually always have to be like, oh, if I do this thing, well, I’m going to go eat at a restaurant later on.
Right. Especially if you’re looking for fat loss. You want to actually tie your rewards into something that’s going to even propel you even a little bit further.
One other thing that we kind of want to mention, too, in the sense of conditioning, we also talk about like punishment sometimes as well. Right. So we can turn it on the its head and we can say like the negative loop where we could be like, hey, say I introduce this one variable.
This is my habit and it makes me feel really bad to drive me away from the thing that we’re trying to get away from as well. Right.
Josko: Yeah, for sure. I had a conversation with one of our clients and he’s like, oh, man, I had Cheetos yesterday and I felt like shit. And like, yeah, that’s good that you say that, man.
Because, yeah, like if I had a bag of Cheetos, I’d feel like ass too. And that’s the reason why like I haven’t. People are always so mind blown when they go like, oh, when was the last time you had McDonald’s?
I’m like 10 years. Like why? Like because first of all, it tastes bad.
Like if I wanted a burger, I could get a good burger for roughly around the same price. And then second of all, like I don’t feel good after. So why would I do that to myself?
Like, oh, you know, the convenience. Big Macs are so good. The fries.
And you’re just like, no.
Brandon: That’s why it’s like one of our favorite questions to ask any of our clients when they come up to us and they’re like, hey, man, like over the weekend, I went on this binge drinking session. And yeah, I feel like crap today. And so you just we both just always look at them and we go.
So was it was it worth it? Yeah. And the reason why we ask that not just to kind of poke him or maybe a little bit, but to just have that person be a little bit more introspective and being like, OK, well, what was the outcome of my actions?
Right. Was it a good thing or was it a bad thing? Right.
Sure. In the moment, it might have felt great and awesome. But that’s short lived because like now it’s Monday and you’re in the gym and you’re like, I feel like crap.
And on Tuesday, you probably still feel like crap. Not as good until maybe even Thursday, Friday, Saturday to the next time. So then when you go back that same kind of condition, you’re like, should I do this again?
Josko: So one thing that I do that kind of trains this pattern as well as gives me a reward as well. So for me, I really enjoy walking, but I realized something the other day. It’s like, do I really enjoy walking or do I really enjoy my one chance to listen to podcasts and like various maybe audio books or anything that I’m really into at the time?
Like it’s my one chance to do it. So do I enjoy that or do I enjoy the walking? So if you tie in activities together and it makes it a lot easier to build a routine.
So if you tell yourself like, okay, I want to go for a walk every single day for 30 minutes or whatever. Why don’t you just like that could be your only time that you could watch this like one show on Netflix. You can walk around with your phone.
People do it all the time. It’s not weird or anything. And you know, you’re watching your favorite show, going for a walk outside and you just give yourself a rule.
Like I can only watch this show while I’m walking.
Brandon: And it doesn’t even have to be a reward. It could just be something that you’re already doing. Like some of our clients be like, oh, I can never take creatine on time every day.
I’m like, dude, just put it right beside your toothbrush or something that you’re already doing in the morning. Or one really easy way to get in the habit of like weighing yourself every day is like I tell a lot of my clients, literally put your scale on the side of your bed. So when you like take off your sheets, you sling your legs over to the side.
You’re like, instead of hitting the floor, you land on the scale. You know what I mean? You’re going to do that anyways.
You might as well tie it and just look down. You just look down. You know what I mean?
Josko: Yeah.
Brandon: And that way you can build that habit. And then, you know, over time you’re like, maybe I don’t need to put this right beside my bed. I’m going to put it in my washroom like a regular person.
Josko: Yeah.
Brandon: Yeah.
Josko: We have some clients that are like, oh, like I forgot to weigh myself this morning. And I’m like, well, where’s your scale? And they’re like, it’s in the closet.
And then I’m like, OK, well, can you like take it out of the closet? And he’s like, yeah, well, I can. But like then I have to put it on the carpet inside my bedroom.
It doesn’t work on the carpet. OK, well, then why don’t you just leave it in the – like, you know, there’s so many barriers. It’s like I have to take it from the closet, from the bedroom all the way to the washroom in order to weigh myself.
It’s like, dude, that’s why you don’t weigh yourself. Yeah. Why don’t you just leave it in the washroom?
Right. And then by the time you get to the washroom, you’re like, it’s out of batteries. Yeah.
Dang it. You need to remember to buy batteries. So to tie all of this together is you can’t have long-term success unless you avoid relapses.
And the best way to avoid relapses is if you avoid your triggers. So what I’ve been working on right now has been basically not using my phone in the morning. So I haven’t been really using my phone at night, but that was a habit that I conquered.
But now using my phone in the morning, I noticed that if I use my phone in the morning, it really does ruin my focus for the entire day, especially in the morning. So I stopped using it. And the one thing that I’ve been extremely fearful of is – because I felt so good, right?
Like I’m like so dialed in in the morning. One thing I’m fearful of is like starting to use my phone again. So what I did was I downloaded an app called like Freedom, and basically it can just turn my phone into a brick in the morning.
Like there’s no – you’d have to like restart your entire phone, you know, like reset it. And so it’s been really helpful and like it locks me off until like 10 o’clock. But that’s because I know that I have to avoid that trigger of using my phone again.
So on Sundays though, so I don’t have it on. So Sundays, you know, I’m like chill day. Like if I want to use my phone earlier, I can use my phone.
And I do notice that like those days I’m not focused. And it’s just so nice. Like Monday morning, it’s like locked again.
Brandon: How is it on Sundays though? Do you find that you do relapse a lot more? You’re just like, oh, yeah, like I’ve been waiting for this all week kind of a thing?
Josko: Oh, yeah, yeah. Like I definitely use my phone way more, way more throughout the entire day from the morning. Because I already kind of look at like Sundays as kind of like a more chill day.
Like I still end up doing a little bit of work. But in general, it’s more of a chill day. And I definitely use my phone way more because I don’t have it turned on.
So, yeah, like avoiding these triggers. And these triggers for anybody might be like, for example, like if you’ve been really dialed into your diet. And you knew that like chips is like a big one for you.
Like if you start eating chips again, and you had like a problem with chips before. You know, like maybe you’re eating chips like every single day, every single night, right? Then if you start eating chips again, it’s very likely that you’re going to fall back into eating them all the time again.
You just have to understand that you’re that type of person. Ever like chocolate or whatever have you.
Brandon: Yeah, and at the beginning of the podcast, we talked about doing this small little change that’s going to like, you know, get the momentum going. And you don’t have to go from black to white. I think what triggers you do, right?
I think for avoiding your triggers, you do have to be like, okay, this is a hard stop. I’m not going to do this anymore here because this is going to cause me to relapse. But in the other way where we’re like, okay, choose the small limiting factor that’s going to get you going.
Those things you can do kind of progressively. Would you agree on that?
Josko: Well, I think also sometimes it is a little bit hard to just like go cold turkey completely on something. So like maybe it would be a good idea and more sustainable if you’re trying to like cut down your phone usage to maybe block it out for the first 30 minutes of the day. You know, then block it out for the next hour and then block it out for the next two hours.
You know, slowly build up to there as opposed to just being like, I’m not going to use my phone for the first six hours of the day. You know, and you’re just like, what have I done? And then as soon as the timer goes off and you can use your phone, you just like automatically go into the app and you turn off that thing.
You know? Yeah. So yeah, it’s a, so you do, I do still think that it should be done slowly.
Brandon: Yeah. Okay. I get that.
I’m just thinking like in the sense of like fat loss, for instance, like I am that person who can’t have chips in the house. I just have zero control over that. And I don’t really usually eat chips unless I have it.
So I just don’t buy it. Yeah. Yeah.
In that case. Yeah. You shouldn’t.
Josko: If that’s the case. So we have chips in the house and yeah, it’s, it’s not like it used to be a trigger for me, but not so much anymore for sure. Like it’s a little bit easier for me than it was before.
Brandon: But that’s like literally, I think, isn’t it? Lay’s slogan is like, I bet you just can’t have one.
Josko: Yeah.
Brandon: Right. They are. They’re like, they’ll challenge you.
Like, I bet you just can’t have one. Yeah. Yeah.
And then, yeah, I’m that person. I can’t have one. So in that case, like I do pull those triggers away.
Um, but yeah, I guess there are days where I’ll like, you know, add something to kind of help myself maintain a better habit. All right. I think that’s it.
And so hopefully you guys enjoyed the podcast today. Again, these are our ways to, you know, get started with building healthy habits are going to help you over the long run. And if you like this episode, make sure to tune into the next one and we’ll see you around.
