Habits are developed by means of two basic factors: reward and repetition. When adults make changes in their lives through new behavior, they have go through the process of forming new habits. Enthusiasm by itself is not enough. It can get you started, but it's not the thing that maintains a change in long-term behavior.
As an adult, you have to decide what you want (a reward like looking better and being healthier).
Determine what you need to do to get it. Then start doing it repetitively
Losing weight and/or building up your muscles are not rewards that will occur immediately—they take at least some months. So the reward is delayed and to a large extent the formation of a new habit in physical exercise and diet depends mostly on repetition. But that's nothing unusual. Many of our habits grow from repetition and delayed reward.
Brushing your teeth several times a day doesn't yield any immediate reward. The payoff is a "non-event" the dentist not using his drill on you months into the future. But that ephemeral association doesn't deter most people from engaging in dental hygiene.
The delayed reward of looking better and avoiding health problems in the future shouldn't preclude you from forming new habits in the area of physical exercise and diet.
Building habits through repetition is easy. How many times have you driven an often-traveled route without thinking? Sometimes, it can get so habitual that even if you intended to divert off the course to go someplace else, you miss the turn off and follow the habitual course. That's the behavior that you want to get working for you in the areas that you choose.
You want to find it easier to follow your fitness programmed, than not to.
Here are some factors and techniques that might help you in developing positive habits.
