the building magic of consistency

When I first became a dietitian, one of my curious friends asked me: “What’s the single healthiest food you can eat?”

I didn’t realize it then, but the framework of that question (”What’s the best form of exercise?”, “What’s the one thing to avoid?”) would become a recurring thread in my work, weaving its way into conversations with clients, family & friends. At face value, these questions are innocent and completely relatable. They reflect the desire to make wellness as effective, efficient, and effortless as possible. But at their root lies an underlying hope: that there is a single key that unlocks a lifetime of wellness.

I’ve come to think of this as the ”magic pill” longing, the idea that maybe (hopefully!) there’s one food, one habit, or one supplement that will lead to an ideal life. If we could just uncover the secret that it seems like so many other people know, we’d be ______ (fill in the blank).

And while I wish I could tell you there was a magic pill (oh, it would be so much easier if there was!), in my experience…it doesn’t exist. No single food, habit, or supplement can create the life we’re hoping for on its own.

But the absence of a magic pill doesn’t mean there is no magic. In fact, the real magic behind every transformation I’ve ever witnessed is consistency.

Consistency is often overlooked as the true secret to success. It isn’t trendy or showy, and it doesn’t make for a catchy headline or promise a quick transformation. It’s what happens behind the scenes, what few people see but what makes the most impact. Maybe it’s taking a lunch break to decompress, showing up for an early morning yoga class, or choosing to prioritize restful sleep. Whatever your small choices are, the magic of consistency builds day by day, choice by choice, over days, months and years. It’s not flashy, quick or easy but steady, intentional & effortful. As habit formation expert James Clear states: “Unheroic days can make for heroic decades.”

And while there are undoubtedly beneficial foods, habits, and supplements to lean on that contribute to long-term wellness, it’s the consistency of their incorporation that makes them effective rather than their once-in-a-while implementation.

A helpful way I think of consistency is like a piggy bank (a wellness piggy bank, if you will). To really paint the picture of this piggy bank, I encourage my clients to name it after their specific wellness goal (i.e ”fit”, “calm”, “vibrant”, or whatever speaks to them). Each time they do something that supports that goal, they drop a metaphorical penny in. And each time they do something that doesn’t align, they take a metaphorical penny out. I find this idea helpful to show that no single day or no one habit makes or breaks us, but instead it’s what we deposit steadily and with dedication that adds up to lasting results.

So if you’re feeling tempted to search for a magic pill to ignite quick change, remember that the most powerful shifts don’t come from singular moments or isolated habits, they come from devoted days & repeated rituals. Keep adding those little pennies that no one sees except you, trusting that your consistency is building magic in the long-run.