Step 1: Recognize The Mental Part Of This Struggle.
The coaches who responded (and my own experience) overwhelmingly agree that this battle is in the mind… not the kitchen. Here are some of our mental battle plans:
- Defining who we are. You may not realize what you say to yourself ABOUT yourself each day, but it influences the choices you make. People who see themselves as ‘healthy’ will make choices to support that view and be uncomfortable when they aren’t. People who see themselves as ‘fat’ or ‘lazy’ will make choices to support those views.
- Using self compassion. We ALL goof up and it’s ok. Eating take-out pizza is not a moral issue. In fact, a reasonable, sustainable approach to food should include treats!
- Starting over now WITHOUT punishment or deprivation. Accept what happened, learn from it and move on. No crazy work outs to ‘burn it off’ or days of only celery. Precision Nutrition uses a great analogy of redirecting just like you would in car. Going too fast? So slow down. Made a wrong turn? So turn around. And just keep going!
- Recognizing if you’re doing an ‘all or nothing’. One slip up doesn’t undo weeks of awesomeness.
- Focusing on a vision of where you want to be or a goal you want to achieve. You may want to lose weight or get stronger, but WHY? What do you want to be able to do? Run a race? Play with your kids? Get off medication? Pick your reason for wanting to be healthy and identify how you could work toward that today. That’s it!
Here’s your homework:
- How do you define yourself? What adjectives would you use to describe who you are?
- When you eat more than you planned or skip working out are you able to accept it, learn from it and move on? If not, why?
- How do you define ‘success’ when it comes to being healthy? Does your definition include some wiggle room or is it strict?
- WHY do you want to be healthy? Why is this journey worth it to you? What would you do if you didn’t have any physical limitations?
