Change your mindset
The most challenging thing about being on a fitness journey, is learning how to be kind to yourself and to embrace failure.
You are currently fighting years and potentially decades of ingrained thought patterns, and habits. You are forced to relearn everything you thought you knew about food, hunger cues and how to actually listen to your body. Every day that you are trying to eat less and move more, you are fighting your own internal thoughts that run rampant in your head saying, “this one candy bar won’t hurt…”, and “I think I can eyeball and estimate these calories”, or “you deserve this extra cheat day”.
When it comes to fitness and health, you are literally fighting yourself. At all times.
Fighting your cravings. Fighting the part of you that thinks you can’t change, that you aren’t worth the effort. That you are too tired, too weak, that you don’t have the time, and that you’ll never get to your goal. You are trying to break free of a cycle that you’ve been in for life, and you have to know that sometimes you will fail.
You won’t be perfect. There will be days of you overeating and going pass your calorie goal. There will be days when you choose to lay in and watch tv instead of doing your training. You will not be perfect, and you need to know that it’s ok, because you don’t need to be perfect to change your life. All you need to do, is wake up everyday ready to try again. Wake up and commit to the goal. You made some poor choices? Theres nothing you can do about it now, just get up and keep moving. Keep fighting. You binged 3,000 calories in one sitting? What’s done is done, you can’t go back and change the past, but you can change what you do tomorrow and the day after.
Commit to change. Then re-commit. Then wake up everyday and commit again.
Experiencing a failure does not make you a failure. See every mistake and obstacle as an opportunity to learn and become better. Don’t despair about training and nutrition slip-ups; rarely is anything unfixable. You are always one workout away and one meal away from reining yourself in again and getting back on track. So what if you screwed up, what can you learn from it? How will you do better next time?
You will struggle, you will fall short, remember that you are fighting off years and years of what was once your normal. Everything you’re doing now is unnatural to you. So recognise the weight of this battle and the size of this hill you are climbing. So many of us try to change our eating habits, or try to become a gym goer, only to (of course) slip back into old ways and we then interpret our lapse as proof that we aren’t destined to be fit, that we just aren’t cut out for this healthier life, and that we never will be.
This type of thinking is detrimental to your journey. Your beliefs about your potential and abilities have a powerful domino effect on your
future behaviors. Your thoughts determine whether you will make moves to turn things around, or continue on the path to self-destruction. Avoid the defeatist mentality and instead work on developing a growth mindset.
People who have a growth mindset believe that ability, skill and personal characteristics can be developed through dedicated effort. The growth mindset asks “What can I learn from this? What can I do better next time”, verses thinking “See! This is proof that I will never change. I am this way and I will always be.”
Consider how you think about your nutrition, exercise, and even your physical body.
What kind of language do you use with yourself?
Next time you slip up and find yourself mindlessly munching and finishing an entire bag of potato chips while you watch tv, instead of giving up and telling yourself, “well today is a bust, I might as well order the pizza too…”, how about you decide that next time you sit to watch tv, you will pour the chips into a bowl and only eat the portion you planned for, instead of giving yourself free rein. Maybe next time you plan to have healthier snacks in the house, or decide that you won’t buy potato chips altogether, until you feel more disciplined. Or you plan to just drink some water when you’re eating your chips, so it helps you feel fuller. With every slip up and mistake, there’s a lesson to be learned. Why waste time crying into your pillow and verbally berating yourself, when you can instead reevaluate the situation, figure out what brought you to this moment and find ways to make smarter choices for the future. Let no mistake be in vain. Be kind to yourself and commit to your goal everyday, and after every slip up.
Food Swaps / Healthy Alternatives
Our last lesson was on eating smarter (high volume, high satiety, hunger scale etc), and with that in mind I want to share with you a list of low calorie foods/ snack ideas that I hope you find helpful! The goal with getting in shape and learning how to eat better, requires you to learn how to eat less, and to eat different by adding in healthier foods that may not be part of your normal diet.…BUT it can also mean finding healthy food swaps and alternatives that make living a healthy life easier.
I’ve included some of my favorite low calorie candies, ice creams and other yummy items that I like to pair with my everyday meals.
Weekly Assignment
For many of us it can be hard to balance learning new healthy eating habits with holidays, birthdays and other celebrations or even just nights out with friends. One day of eating with loved ones will not kill your progress, but let that one day turn into a week of cheats, or a month of cheats to where you’ve started to lose hope and begin thinking you are incapable of change…well that isn’t wise either. So it’s best to equip yourself to succeed. Decide and plan now on how you will balance living healthily with celebrations and fun nights out. That may look like enjoying yourself on the day, but not eating to the point of overindulgence to where you’re uncomfortably full. Or eating the day of, and being smart about the leftovers for the days after. Other ideas to consider:
Eating a lighter meal during the day, when you know you plan to eat out that night.
Making sure to eat your protein and veggies first when you’re out at dinner, before filling up on the bread basket.
Indulging, but not to where you feel sick. So you can eat out but also practice listening to your body, stopping when you feel content instead of just eating because you enjoy the taste.
It is possible to eat holiday food, and to eat out with friends and not go overboard. It is possible to enjoy sweets and cakes and candies in moderation. Changing your lifestyle does not mean you have to completely give up eating the things you love, it just means you may have to practice eating less of it, learning to know when your body has had enough, practicing portion control and being smarter about your food choices. So this week I want you to come up with a plan, enjoy any holidays or family dinners, but plan to wake up and still choose to commit to change.
Schedule your weekly check-in
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