Are you struggling to achieve consistency with your metabolic health goals? One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they start out working on their health is aiming for too many new habits and strategies at once, expecting them to work effortlessly. So how do we break that cycle and take a more realistic (and less frustrating) approach?
In this episode, Dr. Rentea explores practical strategies to build consistent habits, from understanding the initiation phase of behavior change to mastering the “Four C’s” formula to achieve success. Learn how to navigate the complexities of habit formation with ease and purpose, setting the stage for long-lasting improvements in your metabolic health journey.
03:03 - Dr. Rentea discusses two key actions people take to achieve consistency: developing realistic habits and mastering the “Four C's” concept—commitment, courage, capability, and confidence.
10:30 - Dr. Rentea emphasizes the need to seek support to achieve goals and highlights the importance of addressing logistical factors before focusing on the main goal.
12:04 - Dr. Rentea reminds us of the anatomy of a habit, emphasizes focusing on the initiation phase, and explains why we don't need to strive for perfection.
16:45 - Dr. Rentea urges us to identify one key issue we struggle with and focus on the smallest step to change it.
Quotes
“The mistake that everyone makes when they start out working on metabolic health is that you want to have all these new habits, all these new strategies, and you want it all to be working effortlessly. That is insanity to think that that would be the case.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“We need to know what the cue, the trigger, the beginning of you actually doing this new thing is. What actually is it that needs to happen for you to do this thing? And then we need to get really realistic about it.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“I don't negotiate with myself in the morning if I want to walk or not. I'm walking, period. The clothes are laid out, the shoes are there, I'm getting it on and I'm going.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“If you want to make things happen, I want you to look for every single way in your life that you can get the support to do it.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“I want you to focus on just the initiation phase for this habit that you want to do.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“If you were to think about the beginning of a habit and you changed the course just a little bit, you pivoted, you did something differently, you a
Are you struggling to achieve consistency with your metabolic health goals? One of the biggest mistakes that people make when they start out working on their health is aiming for too many new habits and strategies at once, expecting them to work effortlessly. So how do we break that cycle and take a more realistic (and less frustrating) approach?
In this episode, Dr. Rentea explores practical strategies to build consistent habits, from understanding the initiation phase of behavior change to mastering the “Four C’s” formula to achieve success. Learn how to navigate the complexities of habit formation with ease and purpose, setting the stage for long-lasting improvements in your metabolic health journey.
03:03 - Dr. Rentea discusses two key actions people take to achieve consistency: developing realistic habits and mastering the “Four C's” concept—commitment, courage, capability, and confidence.
10:30 - Dr. Rentea emphasizes the need to seek support to achieve goals and highlights the importance of addressing logistical factors before focusing on the main goal.
12:04 - Dr. Rentea reminds us of the anatomy of a habit, emphasizes focusing on the initiation phase, and explains why we don't need to strive for perfection.
16:45 - Dr. Rentea urges us to identify one key issue we struggle with and focus on the smallest step to change it.
Quotes
“The mistake that everyone makes when they start out working on metabolic health is that you want to have all these new habits, all these new strategies, and you want it all to be working effortlessly. That is insanity to think that that would be the case.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“We need to know what the cue, the trigger, the beginning of you actually doing this new thing is. What actually is it that needs to happen for you to do this thing? And then we need to get really realistic about it.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“I don't negotiate with myself in the morning if I want to walk or not. I'm walking, period. The clothes are laid out, the shoes are there, I'm getting it on and I'm going.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“If you want to make things happen, I want you to look for every single way in your life that you can get the support to do it.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“I want you to focus on just the initiation phase for this habit that you want to do.” - Matthea Rentea MD
“If you were to think about the beginning of a habit and you changed the course just a little bit, you pivoted, you did something differently, you a
Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. How's everybody feeling today? I cannot believe how fast time is flying. I've gotten a little bit behind on podcasts here. Whenever I have a conference or something that happens, it kind of throws me off my normal routine. And here I am realizing That while I have many amazing interviews that are recorded and ready to go, I like to make sure that I'm talking to you. I don't just want it to be interviews. So today, if you are new, first of all, welcome. We have a lot of new listeners recently and I hope that you are enjoying this video. podcast. And I want to remind everybody else that's listening. If you are loving this podcast and have not left a review, I am so appreciative of those of you that have left one. But please, please, please take a minute just to leave a review wherever you love most listening to this. That's really one of the best ways that we are able to grow this podcast. And also, obviously, if you're sharing it with a friend, That just means so much to me. I recently hear there's an evidence based obesity medicine group that I'm part of on Facebook that I really love and someone said, Hey, what, you know, I'm liking this podcast, but which other ones in this area do all of you recommend? And of course I said, mine, smiley face. And I put it there and I kind of explained it. Explained what I talk about and a physician said how they put a little screenshot of what they hand to their patients and it was mine and another physician's podcast that they recommend and they wrote kind of why to listen to it and, and they recommended to start with mine. And I have to tell you, that was really humbling and I was incredibly grateful to hear that even my physician colleagues that. That they have the confidence to share this podcast with patients and say, Hey, this is a good one to listen to. And, and, Dr. Patil Sisodia, that was just on a week or two ago here. She said the same thing, how she shares it with her patients as well. And I just want to say, thank you. I'm at this moment of gratitude here recently where. There is something called, there are podcast charts where you can see kind of where your podcast is ranking. And we recently broke into the 40 spot, 4 0 40 spot on the medicine charts in the U. S., the medicine podcasts. And, Listen, I'm so humbled by that. I don't know how many are ranking or if they just show the top 100 or what it looks like, but I've not been that high before. I'm extremely humbled because I know what are the top five or ten and they're ginormous podcasts. So the fact that we're 40, I'm like, I just want to say thank you because that's all of you listening and supporting and I feel the energy. I hear the comments from all of you and I really appreciate it. I just want to start with a moment of gratitude. So today I want to talk about consistency. This has been top of mind for me because I attended here recently a conference with James Clear that wrote the book, Atomic Habits. Again, it's been on the bestseller list for like five years. You need to listen to it if you haven't. And his talk was phenomenal. Now he spoke about habits, but really when you think about consistency, it's just going to be these little habits that you've built up over time. So today I want to talk, it's going to be a quicker episode, but it's going to be really action packed. So if you need to kind of bookmark this one and come back to it, come back to it. Because I'm going to say, These things really quickly, but then it needs time. I always say it needs time to marinate to soak in to think. Remember, we need to actually take action on these things. We can't just be intellectual about it and kind of thinking about these things. We need to then actually go practice. So when I think about consistency, there are two things that people have done. Number one, they have achieved little habits that are working for them. They have made it realistic enough. They have broken it down enough to where they have figured out what that actually is. And we're going to talk about some strategies for that. And then number two, they have really mastered sort of this Dan Sullivan concept of the four C's. And that's basically, they've started with some level of commitment. That's number one. Number two, they've progressed to courage. Courage to take action on these things. Number three, then presents capability where they're actually able to do the things that they wanted to do. And then number four. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. That is insanity to think that that would be the case. This is probably, if you're listening to this podcast, an area that you have struggled with in the past. You might have struggled to maintain your weight, to lose weight, to eat in a different way, to prioritize protein, to consistently get your movement in. Maybe you actually have all that down and now you're really wanting to become incredibly strong and you're wanting to really work on weight training, you know, resistance training and doing different things. The strategy remains the same. You need habits that have small enough little parts that you're able to master and you feel confident in it, but you don't start there. So I want to bring you all the way back to this talk with James Clear. He brought a great example. I hope I don't butcher this because you know, you hear the talk and you kind of, you forget the specifics, but you remember in general what is spoken about. And he gave this example with, I think it was a famous choreographer that lives in New York and she works out two hours every morning. Now you could say, Oh my gosh, that's amazing. And that is. But here's the thing that she stressed in this quote that he shared, she stressed that really the act for her that it's as good as done is that she gets her the gym clothes on, and she lives in New York, she hails a cab, and her getting in the cab, it's as good as done, she knows that that exercise is going to happen. She said, you know, basically don't even focus on this workout, focus on getting in the cab. And that, I mean, I think in some capacity, we've all kind of heard that like, Oh, just if you can even get to the gym, that's 90 percent of it. I, if you've listened to me long enough, you hear the same stories all the time. These are things that are burned in my brain that years ago when I started to work on, I really want to be a different person. I want to be someone that moves consistently, that eats consistently in a different way, and I've just kind of slowly chipped away at this over years. And. I would just get on the treadmill in pajamas with flip flops on because I was too lazy to go up and get the socks and change into the stuff. And I thought, you know what, right now I have five minutes. I can get out and do this. I am just going to go exactly where I'm at. You could think about all the negatives. Oh, that's not the optimal clothes. They're not going to breathe perfectly. Oh, the flip flops are a hazard to trip. Guess what? Don't care about any of it. I started to show myself. The commitment that we're going to move every day, no matter what, in some capacity. I had the courage to be like, we're just going to hop on the treadmill, even though it's not easy. I mean, the speeds were so darn low, but I didn't judge myself. Then I started to develop capability. Okay, I can walk further. I actually like to get clothes on this way, that way. Right now, I'm really into, what are these shorts called? Are they like biker shorts? I don't know, but they're a little bit shorter. They really kind of hold me in a little bit and I just love them. And it's kind of funny what that's developed over time of sort of figuring out, okay, what clothes actually work for me. I actually didn't start with going out and buying a whole new wardrobe. I wanted to first have that commitment, The courage that I'm doing it, I mean, to me, I'm like everyone else that I didn't want to walk around the neighborhood because I thought, Oh my gosh, everyone's gonna be looking at me. You know, this whole story we have in our mind that I'm 100 percent over at this point. But the point is confidence has come last. I'm a million percent confident nowadays that I get my walk in. In fact, I'm recording this on a Monday morning. And, you know, we travel often, road trips, things like that. So we came back late last night and this morning I did a much longer walk than normal. It helped me so much to just kind of let go of the stress from travel. And I'm not even someone that feels stressed, but it just kind of helped to recenter me. And that is because I've just completely developed confidence at this point that I know that when I move, I feel great and I do all these things, but there was a lot behind that. So let's double back to this, your formula for having consistency. is going to be number one. We need to know what the cue, the trigger, the beginning of you actually doing this new thing. What actually is it that needs to happen for you to do this thing? And then we need to get really realistic about it. So I'm going to give a very concrete example, and this is coming out of recently having talked to someone. So this person is actually loves exercise. They're actually very capable with exercise. They know what they're doing in the gym. They have a trainer, all the things this person though. And I know that multiple, like five days a week, that they're going to go early in the morning. And the first thing I really want you to break down is like, is that possible or realistic for me? And I need you to look at your life. It might be a million percent realistic. You might be like me, where if it doesn't happen first thing in the morning, You can maybe get like little its and bits the rest of the day, but you're not actually getting like the full meat and potatoes, right? Like that's the time it needs to happen, at least for me. I kind of fizzle out by the evening. I'm not, you're not getting the best Matea at 7, 8, 9 p. m. For sure, I'm asleep by 9, right? We can all joke about this, but for sure you're not getting the best me. So I know I have to have these things happen in the morning. It also really helps ground me and like the rest of my day is more amazing, right? But. I want you to think about, okay, is that the best time? Is this realistic? Am I actually going to get up when that alarm goes off? Do I have everything prepared for it? Does this feel the best to me? The story for you going to the gym needs to be phenomenal. It needs to be, I do this because I know I feel amazing and then I have the body I want and I feel great all day and it's like it needs to be so much stronger than you being in bed. It needs to be a million percent stronger. Or you need to let go of the fantasy that you're going to want to do it in the morning but you're going to get up and do it because you said you were going to. And some of that, the developing that type of a relationship, like I don't negotiate with myself in the morning if I want to walk or not. I'm walking, period. Like the clothes are laid out, the shoes are there, I'm getting it on and I'm going. I don't even have a conversation. But in the beginning I did, and I had to learn, look, you really don't get this done any other time of the day, so it doesn't even matter if you don't want to do it right now, because it won't happen. So I kind of had to like meet myself where I was at, and with time that stopped being a block for me, but in the beginning, that was what I had to get on board with, was like, how am I actually going to get out of bed and do this? The other thing that I will tell you is if you want to make things happen, I want you to look for every single way in your life that you can get the support to do it. So I want to give you an example. For me, walking in the morning, and I'm sorry, there's a few examples we're always going to come back to because they're just, they're just pivotal examples. For me, I actually asked my husband, Hey, Can you set an alarm and make sure to get me up? Now some of you, some of you might think that's a cop out, but guess what? It's a habit of ours. Literally, he actually sleeps with his watch on. He's one of those likes to record his sleep. I'm the opposite, can't stand the watch on at night. But he, so he has his watch on, so it's not like an obnoxious loud alarm or whatever, but he lets me know. And at this point, I, because I've been getting up at the same time, For so long. I don't even need that anymore. But in the beginning, so I enlisted his help. Number two, I had to ask for help with the fact that he'll get our son ready and take him to school in the morning. So that was, that was something I, I didn't even think I could do before. I thought, okay, well, you know, we both get them ready and we both help and, you know, this is the way it is. And then I learned But then I'm never going to get moving. And so this, it was like, here's the thing. I don't even need to think about the walk first. The first thing I had to do was get help to get up. Logistically realizes there, are there any other obligations in the morning? Okay. Thing number three, I like to make sure to have some fluid. I wake up in the morning, I'm dehydrated. I'm usually hungry. So it's like, all right, I drink some water. I have a little bit of a protein drink. Do you see how many things had to actually get into place for this habit before it actually became a thing? And so this is the first thing I want you to focus on. I want you to focus on what is my commitment going to be and how can I make this first little starting part, the cue, the trigger, whatever you want to call it for the habit. There's always an anatomy to a habit, right? We've talked about this, like every habit there's, there's you, this is going to happen, right? The kind of the cue, the trigger, there's the thing actually happening and then there's the reward because you wouldn't do these things unless you're getting something out of it, right? The only reason we do anything is because of how it's going to make us feel. Okay. So I want you to focus on just the initiation phase for this habit that you want to do. I know that you want to focus on the whole thing. You also really want to focus on perfecting this thing before you've ever even done it. And I don't want you to go that far. I literally, for consistency, want you to think about what is realistic in my life? What do I actually want to do? And we're going to do that for a week. Maybe it's three times a week, whatever that week looks like, and then we're going to reevaluate. And we're going to keep fine tuning this so that it becomes really effortless in your life. Not someone else's life, your life. Like, we literally are going through some changes here, where next year is going to look different, and our family, kind of where we are and what we're doing. And I'm literally going to have to redo every single day of my schedule. Literally, whether, you know, if my husband's traveling a day a week for work or whatever is happening, literally my work schedule is going to change, my exercise schedule, all of it. And I'm not going to think that week one, when we're in that new routine, that it's going to be perfect. That's not going to happen. It's going to take time again to develop new habits, new flows, kind of getting back in it. I heard this analogy recently that every river, however many years, you know, it changes where it's going. These are not static things. And I want you to think about what are the things that you are wanting to accomplish that maybe you keep thinking, like, these things just keep happening to me, right? Let's give, let's give a concrete example. A lot of people struggle with nighttime snacks. Even if you're on a medication, even all these things, you just struggle with just this habit of, wanting something sweet or something crunchy or maybe your partner is eating something at night and it's a struggle and you know, I'm not hungry, I really don't need this, but it's happening. Okay, it's a habit. And realize, often habits are just happening so quickly, we feel like this thing just keeps happening. And a coach said a really good, good comment the other day to me. She's like, look, it's just happening so quick, you're unaware of it. And so we need to, so she helped me to look at kind of what was, what was the first thing that's happening that I even know that this is going to happen. Again, I always talk about being in detective mode. I want you to think about, let's take nighttime snacking. I Something happens there that, that makes that happen. So, let's say your partner brings a bag of chips into bed. Let's say that you're sitting there at the TV and maybe you start to think, Oh, what's in the pantry? Like that thought is actually the first part of the habit occurring. So I want you to start to break these things down and just think about the beginning of it. We don't need to tackle the entire thing. We don't need to suddenly become an expert and I'm not snacking at night or suddenly all the exercise is happening perfectly. All we have to do is think about the beginning of it. Because honestly, it's going to solve about 99 percent of it for you. Just stop and pause for a second to think about this. If you were to think about the beginning of a habit and you change the course just a little bit, you pivoted. You did something differently. You are not going to get the same outcome. So you think a million things need to change? That's not true. I am 100 percent dead serious when I say this, me having developed this, what I consider really impeccable walking habit at this point, I love it, like it's, it's beyond a love relationship. So that happening over the past five years, it was literally because I was willing at any time in the day, it was a win. any time to put my flip flops on and hop on the treadmill. And I'm remembering back now because I can't even remember these things at this point. I remember in the beginning it was like I was working so many hours as a primary care physician and I would be getting home late and I had a, you know, my newborn. who was, you know, a few months old. Like that's when all these things were happening. Actually, even when I was pregnant with him, I was developing the walking habit because I have told you all that I had with Toby, I had gestational diabetes. And so that was a big part of naturally managing the blood sugars was eating low carbohydrate and then exercise, like doing, walking after meals. But I have to tell you, I mean, imagine a pregnant Matea did not want to walk after dinner. That was not appealing, but I was like, look, you're just going to do it for a few minutes. And yeah, sciatica and all the things would pop up and there were all the things to work through, but literally just the act of like we're going to put on whatever and we're going to get on that treadmill, that's what kicked this all off. And now that's not something I have to think about because it runs itself. So I want you again, I want you to think right now. We're just going to take a second. I want you to think about what is the number one thing that is just plaguing you right now. Everybody knows what it is. Is it that you never get your fluids in and you're always like, oh, how did that happen? Is it that you are at a meal and you're actually like, I'm actually good. I'm satisfied, but you keep eating. Is it a nighttime snack? Is it that you're not moving as much as you think? Is it that stress is through the roof? There is something happening for you. Okay, we're gonna put a pin in that this is this is the thing we're gonna work on This is the thing we're gonna figure out the first step that I want you to do today I want you to think about what is the thing that leads to that starting the smallest thing ever That can lead to you doing something different what leads to the current behavior And what is the smallest thing that you're going to do differently? And then that is what we're going to practice the next week. I'm going to give you one last example here to show you. And by the way, these are the kinds of things that are best done in coaching sessions. I just want to throw it out there because you can know all this information, but then implementing it as different. So I will give you an example. For me, dinners are an area where I periodically struggle and it can be because I'm too stressed and tired and then I under eat during the day and then at night I'm too hungry or a lot of the time I've, even with the medication, I have a very hard time sensing enough with food. Like I will literally, like, I still feel hungry. I can't describe it. It'll be like two hours later that I feel, oh, I've had enough. So a really great idea that my coach said was doing protein appetizer. And so the other day I literally had some tofu even before dinner, I had a few pieces and I just kind of slowly ate it the 30 minutes before dinner and then I had the rest of my dinner and that totally changed things for me. So that was the one thing I was going to experiment with to see if that could be different. This outcome of still being hungry with meals or then being scroungy and having snacks, all these things, I was like, I'm going to try the protein appetizer. So I know for me. That the end of the workday comes, I'm overly hungry, I end up not making good decisions, or I end up needing to eat more food than I think. And there's many strategies that can be tried here. You can try, period, serving yourself a smaller amount and just saying, hey, you know, 30 minutes later, how do I feel? An hour later, how do I feel? You could try changing the protein amount. You could try changing the veggie amount. You could try walking more earlier in the day so your stress is lower. You could try the protein appetizers. There's a million things that you can try. To tackle this thing to make new habits, but this is one thing that I've been doing the past week That's the commitment for me. That's the commitment. I'm committed to trying the protein appetizer It's kind of a courageous move to try something different because you could sit there in my mind's like oh my gosh But then I'm gonna be eating for an hour and is that good for insulin levels? You know, I'm going all the way to all the things. That's not what it's about right now You This is the one habit. This is the one thing we're trying to change and do differently. Dinners, we're going to work on this. That's the one way that I'm going to lead into it differently. That is the smallest thing that I can work on. I'm not changing 50 things at once. It's that one thing. Oftentimes when you think about this thing that you want to be consistent with or the goal or whatever it is, most of you honestly need to cut it down by about a third, like whatever the goal is. If you're like five days a week, I'm going to get to the gem. I want you to say two times a week is my baseline minimum and every other day is bonus. I mean, how good would that feel that you do those two days, you're like, yes, I kept my commitment to myself, that's phenomenal, I'm so consistent, and every other day is bonus, you can grow into the person that starts to go every day no matter what, but why do we have to start there if that's not already happening? We need to even lay down the habit before we can perfect the habit. Remember, not, I feel like perfection's the wrong word, but just really to make it something that's solid, let me put it that way. So I want to throw out there if there's a new habit, something you're trying to work on, something you're trying to do, I want you to think about one thing that you can do that happens right in the beginning. And it could be anything. It could be even noticing what the thought is. It could be sitting in a different room. It could be eating a different thing. It could be moving differently. But you need to think about what is the kicking off point, the cue, the thing that's actually starting this thing off. Okay, and then I want you to realize, thing number two for this, is that you're at the commitment stage, you're at step one, this Dan Sullivan's four C's. By the way, this is totally, what is the name of the book even? It's the four C's formula, you're building blocks of growth, commitment, courage, capability, and confidence. I literally had to look the book up because I talk about this all the time. And I think he has a program called Strategic Coach. It's more for like a sort of like leadership business type of thing, but there's a lot of his principles that I've enjoyed because he's kind of partnered up with Dr. Benjamin Hardy and they've written, you know, the book I talk a lot about, The Gap and the Gain. And then also recently here, there's been the book 10X is Easier Than 2X. So all these books have little good principles within them and I find it to be helpful to kind of take what works for me and drop the rest. But I want you with this habit. I want you to think about, okay, this is the area that's plaguing me right now. This is the one thing I'm willing to do differently. One thing. I've cut it down a lot compared to what I thought I needed. I think I thought I needed to do all these things. I've, I've listened to Matea. I've cut it way down. And then that little thing, here's my commitment. I'm gonna have the courage to go do it. I'm gonna gain capability with time. Remember, those things take time. You're not going to get this overnight, okay? You don't become a master overnight. Confidence is developed with repetitions. You've got to do the thing a lot of times. You don't have confidence minute one. Listen, if you have confidence minute one, it's really easy what you're doing. Because I don't know if everything is super confident minute one. You're not really tackling big things. Because I have to tell you, when I did that tofu thing, I felt, I was like, I can't believe I did this and look how this worked and all the things. I felt like it was the biggest accomplishment ever. Why? Because it's been an area where I've had to really like finesse this and like really work at this over the past few years. And then it'll be going great, and that's always the first thing to break, so obviously it's the most fragile, right? Like, when you look at things, instead of being so defeated by it, it's like, no, you're probably, like, breaking through a new level somewhere when some old habit or something kind of comes back. And then it also tells you, I just have a lot more work to do there. I just obviously don't have this, like, totally locked down. Not that perfection's ever, ever asked of you, and it's not ever needed, but whenever something keeps breaking, it just means, hey, like, there's just a little bit more, TLC that's needed in this area, and that's okay. Remember, we talk a lot on this podcast about obesity being a chronic medical condition, and every day us needing to give energy to this, every day us needing to invest in, I'm going to take care of my health, and that's okay. This is not, like, We're there and we never again have to think about it. That's just not the way that this stuff works. All right, so I'm going to leave it here today. This is a little, I said it was going to be a quick one and then it ended up not being, but I hope that this episode resonates with you. Let me know your thoughts, share with me on social, tag me on this episode, and we'll talk soon.