Healthy Foods |
very unrealistic because no matter
what if you are going to lose weight over a period of time it is not a perfect
linear path and what happens is when you tell yourself that the minute you eat
the ice cream or the doughnut or the thing that was not on the plan that you
now off the wagon it then encourages more bad behavior and I lose I use that
term loosely but it's this idea that I've ruined it it's off the wagon and so
what's the point and that can send us into a day two days a week a month right
of spiraling in a direction of
continuing to eat poorly and not
focusing on the goals that we've set for ourselves because we feel like it's
not working anyway right so instead of thinking of a wagon you just want to
think this is a continuum and if I slip up or when I make a decision that's not
aligned with my plan I'm gonna look at it and I'm gonna learn from it and I'm
gonna use this as a part of my journey forward I'm not gonna use it as a reason
to stop and I'm not gonna use it as a reason to quit this is a part of the
journey nothing has gone wrong tip
number three and I will say this was
one of the biggest mental shifts for me I know I've shared it before but what I
started to do was instead of focusing on all of the foods that I believed I
needed to restrict and deprive myself of all the things I needed to take away
from my diet which feels like a constant state of like scarcity I began to
focus on all of the foods I got to include right and that made it fun it made
it more like a game I started thinking what can I try what's in season what did
I see in that magazine or on that healthy blog right and then it became like
this playful experiment and it didn't feel like a like punishment it actually
was enjoyable and something that I looked forward to so focusing on all of the
foods that you get to include in maybe experimenting with a couple new things
every making that commitment to yourself can really create a mental shift
around weight loss and make it a lot more enjoyable and a lot more sustainable
tip number four which piggy backs off of tip number three is the crowd out
technique again when we are making changes a lot of times we are thinking that
we have to do this huge overhaul and we want to change everything overnight but
the truth is creating new habits takes time and it takes practice so a really
great way to do that is to use the crowd up technique again instead of saying
I'm not gonna eat this or I'm not gonna eat that make a small commitment like I
am going to include two vegetables on my lunch plate every single day and you practice
that for one week two weeks three weeks until it becomes so natural and so
habitual to you that it doesn't feel like trying anymore it's just
something that you do and then once
that happens you pick something else to invite onto your plate or into your
kitchen or into your day-to-day habits right so maybe it's drinking more water
or working in a certain amount of movement every day and you just focus on that
one thing and as you focus on that one thing other things start to fall away so
again it's a mental shift because instead of focusing on things that we think
we can't do or we shouldn't do we're bringing in habits that we want to do and
then just letting
the other ones be slightly crowded out a bit it's a much more gentle approach and again it is a much more enjoyable approach number five focus on your commitments instead of your results right so many people when it comes to weight loss we think that the number on the scale dictates whether or not we have had any success or if we're moving in the right direction but as we know bodies are fluid and ever moving and scales are you know not linear they move up and down on a weight-loss journey and so it can become very discouraging when you're using only the scale to decide whether or not you have moved towards your goal when you make the shift to focusing on your commitments to yourself that gives you a lot more control over the day-to-day right so if your commitment is hey I'm gonna drink four glasses of water today or hey I'm gonna move my body for 30 minutes today or I'm gonna put two servings of vegetables on my lunch plate every day right you have something very clear very specific to focus on and then you know whether or not you have been successful that day by your ability to honor the commitment that you made to yourself so it becomes a much more tangible way to see if you're making success because at the end of the day weight loss over the long haul comes down to those day-to-day practices those day-to-day habits and so when you are making a habit for that day and paying attention to that day those are the small wins that add up over time and might I also add that is how motivation is fed right often people say well how can I get more motivated how do you motivate yourself and I personally have found that motivation is often a byproduct of results we don't usually start out motivated or maybe we do for the first few days but what tends to get us motivated is when we are having results so if you have the results of honoring your commitment 710 days how good that starts to feel you start to feel motivated you start to build momentum and that again makes everything more enjoyable more pleasurable and therefore more sustainable and the final tip I want to share with you today the sixth tip is to be reflective and not rejected right so when you are not able to stick to your intentions when you you find that you were not able to commit to the things you set out for yourself instead of using that as a reason to reject yourself and turn your back on yourself and tell yourself you're not capable or that you're a failure or this is just something your honor able to do use it as an invitation to stay soft and compassionate and curious imagine every single time you made a turn that was off the path you wanted to learn from it right that you wanted to understand it more instead of just labeling it as a problem and rejecting the whole thing you would in the long run make so much more further forward progress right weight loss is not only about the the weight falling off your body or the number of the scale going down it's about the relationship that we get to foster with ourselves and when you bring that to the forefront and you remember that again it's a huge shift in the weight loss journey so much of what I wanted to share here today as you can see it's really reflective of the mental aspects of weight loss yes there are definitely action steps we can take on our plates and with our food and it that's different for everybody but if you can't get the mental game straight right if you can't be on your own side and be in this for the long run I don't care what you put on your plate you're always gonna have to come back to the drawing board to deal with you I would actually go so far to say that I think for many people the weight loss journey is only about learning how to foster a kinder more loving relationship with themselves in their bodies but again that's just a little food for thought.
0 Comments