Family time is really important
After I graduated, I started in construction and put on about 30 pounds after getting married. My mom had dieted her whole life. She would always try something, it wouldn’t work, and she gained the weight back. Then she found the Habits of Health through a friend after watching them lose over 100 pounds*, and she decided to start it. After about two weeks, my dad noticed, and she explained the program to him.
I remember my mom hitting her goal and just being like, “I’ve got to tell the whole family about this.” My grandparents jumped on, and my great-grandma lost a hundred pounds* on this program in her eighties. She was on death’s door, and because of her change in her health, we actually got more time with her, which is pretty amazing.
We used to have really unhealthy meals, now it’s more about conversation, healthy food and activities rather than how much food is on the table.
The Habits of Health started spreading throughout my family. It like one after another. Family gatherings changed up quite a bit, and I remember it being so powerful that I was actually noticing it at a high school age. We used to have really unhealthy meals, and now it’s more about the topics of conversation and healthy food and activities rather than how much food is on the table at the family gatherings.
This is my very first weight loss endeavor. I never really thought about nutrition, because when you’re a three-sport athlete in high school, they just tell you to eat everything you can; they don’t tell you about anything nutritionally.
*In a clinical study, the group on the Optimal Weight 5 & 1 Plan® lost 10x more weight than the self-directed group. Average weight loss on the Optimal Weight 5 & 1 Plan is 12 pounds.
The foundation of our marriage and our family was set up on microHabits.
The microHabits are a lifelong journey
At first, I started this as a diet. I saw my family lose weight, so I was planning on losing weight, but the process is about the Habits of Health. I started recognizing that I was feeling better and sleeping better. I dove into Dr. Andersen’s book and started recognizing things he was talking about were happening to me as I was taking care of myself.
I got healthy with my wife. We were young, married probably a year and a half when we got started on this journey. The foundation of our marriage and our family was set up on microHabits. We spend a lot of time with our family, and it makes a big difference because everyone around us is striving for better health.
You are like the people you surround yourself with. It doesn’t matter how good or focused you are – the things that you surround yourself with are going to make the process easier or more difficult. Having our family surrounding us was super helpful. Everywhere we go, we’re lifting each other up.
The coolest thing about the Habits of Health is that it’s a lifelong journey, so it’s not, “Hey, I got to be perfect today.” It’s, “I’m starting a journey, and as I go through it, I’m going to start figuring out what works in my favor and what doesn’t work in my favor.” And you can start working on that, because nothing gets done in one single day. The microHabits make all the difference.