Fitness Friday
Each Friday, we send out “Fitness Friday” tips for fitness and nutrition in the weekly digest email that goes out to the membership. If you have any Fitness thoughts or suggestions for the Club, please email your input to: fitness@irvingtonclub.com. Let’s get fit!
FITNESS FRIDAY - February 6th, 2026
We strive to improve the health of our members with exercise and eating tips with these weekly articles. We have focused on habits since the new year. For the health effects to be significant, ideally, the tips become habits. In this article, we will explore a few more “try this at home” ideas relating to habits.
These articles are based on writings by Gretchen Rubin, an award-winning writer and podcaster who specializes in happiness, habits, and human nature. She writes:
“Habits are the invisible architecture of daily life. About forty percent of daily life is shaped by habit, so if we follow habits that work for us, we’re much more likely to achieve our aims and build a happier life.”
Gretchen Rubin identifies twenty-one strategies to make or break habits. Many experts suggest one-size-fits-all solutions for habit change. But we’re all different, so different strategies work for different people. Below are four other ideas for maintaining good habits.
For many people, if it’s on the calendar, it happens. Habits grow strongest and fastest when they’re repeated in predictable ways, and for most of us, putting an activity on the schedule tends to lock us into doing it. Scheduling an activity also protects that time from interference.
To a truly remarkable extent, we’re more likely to do something if it’s convenient, and less likely if it’s not. The amount of effort, time, or decision-making required by an action has a huge influence on our habits. Make it easy to do right and hard to go wrong. Likewise…
We’re less likely to take an action if it’s inconvenient. The harder it is to indulge in a bad habit, the harder it is to do it impulsively. To weaken a bad habit, make it as inconvenient as possible.
Plan to fail. Try to anticipate and minimize temptation, both in your environment and in your own mind. Use “if-then” planning to prepare for challenges that might arise: “If it’s raining, then I will exercise by following an online cardio video.”
Please let us know if you have comments, questions, or ideas for future articles. Contact Becky at bchasse@irvingtonclub.com or The Fitness Committee at fitness@irvingtonclub.com
Gretchen Rubin Resources
The website link: Getting Started: Habits | Gretchen Rubin
Podcast: Happier with Grethen Rubin
Book about Changing Habits: Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everday Lives