- Faithful Fitness: God, Weight Loss, and Exercise
- Garlic Sweet Potato Mash
- Why My eBook Hasn’t Been Popular
- One Weird Thing that Helps Me Enjoy Exercise More
- How Does Guilt Fit into Weirdly Faithful Fitness?
- Are there Good Foods and Bad Foods?
- The Freedom of Constraint
- Call Me Weird, But…I LOVE the Paleo Lifestyle!
- Do This When You Feel Ridiculously Underqualified
- Laughter is the best…Fitness?
- Motivations for The Coming Week
- Ask the Experts for Fitness Advice: YOU!
- I Am a Person Who
- How my Son’s Life-Threatening Condition Gave Me Freedom
- Do You Need Exercise Accountability?
- How Losing the Guilt Breaks the Cycle
- My Family Hates Exercise
- Grace for the Now
- How Workouts Can Lead to Fat Gain
- Your Expert Advice: Fitness
- Don’t Forget de’ FEET!
- Four Steps to Tell Your Support Peeps What You Need
- A Day in the Life of Maintaining a 100 lb Weight Loss
- Three Girls and a Dog
- The Red Zone: How to Enjoy the Holidays and Stay Fit
- How to Avoid Burn Out and Find Fitness Success
by Christine Drews
Did you know there is actually scientific research that proves we should give ourselves and others grace for where we are at in this process of getting moving?
James Prochaska and his colleagues at the University of Rhode Island developed what is called the “transtheoretical model.” It has been used quite successfully in helping people to change habits such as quitting smoking and becoming more physically active. It incorporates stages of “readiness to change” as a person moves along a fluid continuum of changing a habit.
The Five Stages of Change
Take a look at the five stages and see where you are at. Give yourself some grace for being there! Weigh the pros and cons of making a change. You might even list them. Once the pros become more important to you, you’re likely to move along in this process.
You might move back and forth between stages, and when you do, consider what has worked for you in the past: How might you apply something from that past success to help you overcome the new hurdle?
1. Not thinking about physical activity (precontemplation)
In this stage, you are not even thinking about being physically active. If you find yourself here, you might consider thinking more about physical activity and how being physically active could improve your life or your outlook. This is a valuable stage. Give yourself some grace for being here, and allow yourself to think about physical activity even if you’re not being active quite yet.
2. Thinking about physical activity (contemplation)
If you think about physical activity, but you haven’t actually started moving, you are here! At least you recognize that physical activity would benefit you. You might have a lot of barriers to being active. Take some time to identify ways to fit small amounts of movement into your life. Park far away, or stand up and walk around the house during television commercials. Congratulate yourself when you take small steps toward being active. Something is better than nothing!
3. Doing some physical activity (preparation)
You really want to be physically active, and you actually are some of the time, but you haven’t found a way to do it regularly. If you’re in this stage, try to identify ways to increase the amount of physical activity you do. The goal for overall health is to accumulate 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity at least 5 days a week. You don’t have to be out to run a 5K or lift heavy weights. Do what works for you. You might block out times on your calendar or set a reward system that works for you.
4. Being physically active regularly (action)
If you get 30 minutes of physical activity most days of the week, but you’ve been regularly active for less than 6 months, you are in the action stage. Good for you! Now you want to make your habit consistent and figure out how you’re going to overcome barriers like bad weather, travel schedule, or the holidays.
5. Maintaining regular physical activity (maintenance)
You have been physically active for 30 minutes most days of the week for at least 6 months. You’ve figured out how to fit it in, even when unexpected things happen. You might want to try new activities to keep from getting bored or add more vigorous activities. Even at this stage, give yourself some grace when things don’t go as you have planned, and jump back on track as soon as you are able.
Grace for the Now
See? Even science proves grace is effective. Embrace your stage and your journey toward the next one.
The information in this article is based on the book and program Active Living Every Day, 2nd ed., 2011, by S.N. Blair, A.L. Dunn, B.H. Marcus, R.A. Carpenter, and P. Jaret. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
What stage of change are you in?
Check out some other articles by Christine Drews in her Trusting in God series.
- Faithful Fitness: God, Weight Loss, and Exercise
- Why My eBook Hasn’t Been Popular
- One Weird Thing that Helps Me Enjoy Exercise More
- How Does Guilt Fit into Weirdly Faithful Fitness?
- Are there Good Foods and Bad Foods?
- The Freedom of Constraint
- Call Me Weird, But…I LOVE the Paleo Lifestyle!
- Do This When You Feel Ridiculously Underqualified
- Laughter is the best…Fitness?
- Motivations for The Coming Week
- Ask the Experts for Fitness Advice: YOU!
- I Am a Person Who
- How my Son’s Life-Threatening Condition Gave Me Freedom
- Do You Need Exercise Accountability?
- How Losing the Guilt Breaks the Cycle
- My Family Hates Exercise
- Garlic Sweet Potato Mash
- Grace for the Now
- How Workouts Can Lead to Fat Gain
- Your Expert Advice: Fitness
- Don’t Forget de’ FEET!
- Four Steps to Tell Your Support Peeps What You Need
- A Day in the Life of Maintaining a 100 lb Weight Loss
- Three Girls and a Dog
- The Red Zone: How to Enjoy the Holidays and Stay Fit
- How to Avoid Burn Out and Find Fitness Success
I have never heard of these stages before but I can see I have slidden from the maintenance stage (before kids) to the Preparation stage. Ugh. Thanks for the reminder to give myself grace!
I think I’m in the preparation stage – I’ve started walking fairly regularly. It’s been hard to get moving after having my baby. I’m trying to start a plan to be active at least three times a week!
Amanda, That is terrific! I’m with you in the preparation stage. I want to call myself in the action stage, but when I’m honest about it, I’m not directly physically active 5 days a week. Three is great! That’s my mindset right now. 🙂 The baby schedule will throw everything off, but hopefully those walks will be your chance to take deep breaths and refresh yourself.
I am definitely in between contemplation and preparation. A spouse with an erratic schedule and 3 kiddos under 4 makes it hard. Although chasing toddlers around – that’s got to count for something!
Chasing toddlers certain counts! Daily life activity makes a really big difference in overall fitness and calorie burn.
Laura, that’s a great stage to be at! At least you’re thinking about it. Chasing toddlers definitely counts. So does vacuuming, going up and down stairs, and playing at the park. Grace to you. You’ll get there.
I’m in the third stage and moving toward the fourth. I have walked around the block three times so far this week. I took the car and measured it and it’s 1/3 of a mile. It’s all I can do right now but it is more than I was doing last week. And it felt good!
That’s awesome, Shelby! I’m so excited you are going to do the Faithful Finish Lines practice round with us. It’s going to be a great 7 weeks.
Thanks for an awesome post!
Thank you! One never knows what will hit home. I think this post does because it’s so practical. We can all relate to one stage or another. Blessings to you.