When One Habit Depends On Other Habits, Where Do You Start?

[100rockets]

Ive been working on changing and creating new habits in the past few months and Ive been doing pretty good overall. The problem that I run into is when the success of building one habit is dependent on other ones.

For example,  I know that I need to exercise regularly but every time I do, I feel tired for days, my body isnt able to handle the lightest exercise because of my poor diet.
I dont eat very healthy, Ive been working on that too but slowly, because if I do it all at once I will fail. I need to build small consistent habits.
The problem is that eating healthy is expensive so if I want to eat healthy regularly I also need to spend more on food which means that I need to cut back on other things so I need to work on my spending habits and/or growing my income. I can go on and on with this but if I stop here then I can conclude that in order to exercise I need to work on my finances however, the reason I wanted to exercise to begin with was to feel better so that I can work better and concentrate on learning new things (so I can grow my income). Any advice?

Thank you!

[J. M. Wigglesworth]

The narrative is that to have a good diet you need a better bank balance. Eating certain healthy food may be expensive. Acai berries, kale, chia seeds or triple-double-organic-whatever-leaf etc will definitely take plenty out of your pocket. But there are so many cheap options available: Cabbage, potatoes, beans, onions, carrots, lentils, legumes for your main dishes. Bananas, sweet potatoes and oranges for snacks. Use plenty of spices to get your micronutrients( I take turmeric with pepper daily). Learn to make dishes around cheap, wholesome food. Make sure to get rid of any unhealthy food in your kitchen otherwise you make the decision of eating healthy much harder whereas if you cleanse your home of junk you won't even have to make a decision, you'll just eat healthy by default.

 

Regarding exercise, it's fine to start slow. Try walking twenty minutes a day. Do some jumping jacks. Dance a little funky dance. Also, I've heard of this one way of exercising where you just shake your body and sort of flail about for fifteen minutes and apparently it's considered an extremely efficient way of exercising if you're just looking for the benefits(no guarantees though)

 

Keep at it. Changing multiple habits at a time isn't easy.

[ayokolomo]

Honestly when I read your post, all I could see was "I cant because...."  Maybe you could change that.

Also just like @J. M. Wigglesworth said start small.  Try to do 5 push ups everyday, make sure you drink enough water.  Small steps.

[Sarah Marie]

You think about what is the root cause of these behaviors? Why aren't you showing yourself self love? Why the self loathing? Also would recommend getting your blood work done to make sure there isn't any other underlying issues. Good luck, you can do this! 

I was bulimic and addicted to drugs at the same time, so I know all about this stuggle. Baby steps are key! 

[100rockets]

Thank you everyone for the replies. I tend to want to change things all at once sometimes and end up frustrated not realizing how negative I'm thinking.  Perhaps I should focus on what I can do in baby steps and be happy with what I can achieve in smaller increments rather than try to get ahead of myself. In time it will add up. J. M. Wigglesworth you nailed it, when I think healthy I'm thinking organic, chia seeds etc but I can start with making some dishes with cheaper alternatives and drink lots of water then build up from there.

Thanks guys