what's the evidence supporting instant total change in habit v's gradual change, particularly in reference to MTFU, daily food intake, exercise and excessive procrastination?

gradual pissing around or full scale 100% frontal assault?

depends on the route cause

if you can identify the triggers then you have more chance of dealing with them.

With fags I went for 100% frontal assault, worked fine, 5 years later I have had maybe 6 ciggies when drunk and enjoyed it without feeling the need to go back full time.

I keep meaning to do the same thing with chips/toast/fryups/sugarpuffs&cream but its somehow much harder, although I might have another go today..

I think with exercise it has to be a gradual change. You can't just go from doing nothing to exercising hard every day. That has to be gradual as your body will take time to adapt. However with change in eating / smoking / drinking etc I find it has to be an instant and total change.

drinking has to be an instant change really as having one or two drinks makes you more likely to have 'just one more' and so on.

Never smoked, so not sure about how hard or eay that can be.

Hardly drink, so drinking or not drinking is no big deal.

But, I can certainly eat. This is the most pernicious for me. Frankly, the only way i knopw to break eating habits is to break other habits at the same time. So, if i associate eating with being around the house and bored, then I try to change what it is I do with myself. Generally, the more occupied I am, the less i eat.

Otherwise, it's all aboiut gradual change, as that's most likely to lead to a sort of self imposed cognitive behavioural change that will last over time.

In the past at times I've lost quite a lot of weight, adopted a harsh exercise regime and given up smoking.

In my experience, having tangible goals or benchmarks is most important. If you tell yourself to eat "a bit less fatty foods" it's much harder to judge what is less, over what period, etc. If you become a vegan or decide to just eat salad then you've got a clearer rule to follow.

I agree with the point above about exercise as far as physically/physiologically, you can't start running marathons if you're overweight. When I started MTBing I hadn't done any significant exercise in 10 years and I immediately started pushing myself as hard as I could and challenging myself every time I went out. I'm doing a half marathon in Feb, but this time I decided to use a training plan which basically involves gradually increasing time spent running. I find this much better than when I've run regularly in the past, where I was running the same distance over and over and just trying to do it faster.

I think the above is quite a male perspective though: setting yourself against something, and achieving goals by bloody mindedness. The first time I gave up smoking I did this and lasted a 6 months before gradually sliding back into it. This time I read allan carr book, which is much more sensible than I would have ever believed. However to paraphrase, "yes stop smoking completely – you have to or else you'll still be addicted and just sad that you can't smoke – and don't mope about fags".

drinking is not being given up

you can go straight into hard exercise it just takes a few weeks for the shock to dissipate

wondering about instant change of daily habit/routine/attitude

has anyone been able to do an instant transformation that lasted?

I've gone from putting my head into a shoe box, sometimes more than three times a day, down to once every other week. I think if I'd cut it out 100% it would have felt like I'd lost a part of my sole.