Like children, sometimes what we hear and what we do when it comes to improving our health are two different things.
| What we hear: | What we do: |
| Eat less at night. | Eat nothing at night. |
| Eat smaller meals. | Eat carrot sticks. |
| Your caloric needs will eventually decrease with weight loss. | Start counting calories and eat as little as possible as soon as you decide to loose weight. |
| Exercise 4-5 times a week. | Exercise as often as possible and for as long as possible. Hello burnout! |
| Give up dieting and focus on making healthier choices with food selection and preparation. | Secretly be on the lookout for the next “miracle” diet plan or diet pill, giving only lip service to changing your lifestyle gradually. |
It is not an all or nothing approach when it comes to making that decision to become healthier, but it is about making progress. How can you make any real progress when you are constantly looking backwards? Do you still have a diet mentality when it comes to your health?
| Diet mentality: | Healthy approach: |
| Following a meal plan. | Eating when hungry. |
| Eating less than 1,200 calories a day. | Eating different levels of calories every day depending on how hungry you are. |
| Eliminating a food group. | Eating a variety of foods from all the food groups. |
| Eliminating your favorite foods. | Incorporating your favorite foods. |
A healthy lifestyle is not about what you cannot eat and what you cannot do. It is about what you can eat and what you can do. You can have energy. You can have vibrancy. So repeat after me: I am not on a diet.
Unfortunately, when it comes to weight loss, common sense is rare. Listen to your instincts. You know what works for your body and what does not. A diet book or a meal plan is not personalized to match what you need. It is created for the mass market. It is as mythical as the “average person” that we always used. But how many of use has actually met this “average person” with 2.2 kids?
Websites like this can only give you ideas and encouragement. But what is the point of doing all this reading when you keep sitting here? Feeling good is the first step of looking good. When you start eating healthy and exercising, you will start feeling good about yourself long before you start looking good.
Looking good is an external motivator that is dependent on other people’s actions such as compliments or attention from the opposite sex. Feeling good is an internal motivator dependent only on yourself and your effort such as an increase in energy, mobility, and vibrancy throughout your day. So what would you rather have?
Until next time and thanks for stopping by.
Like what you are reading? How about subscribing? It's free!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
GREAT POST. I really needed to read this today – the ‘healthy mindsets’ are what I need to get into my head.
Although I’ve finally gotten out of the ‘diet’ mentality – it does help to think of different days having different levels of hunger. THANK YOU!
IzzyBeths last blog post..Day 1 – Push-Up Challenge
I am glad that I am able to help. Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Good post. This ‘diet mentality’ really helps explain why the majority of diets are not long term solutions. Very few people can sustain this all or nothing approach but by making small changes to our lifestyle e.g. removing 200 calories, replacing a bag of crisps with a piece of fruit or walking instead of getting the bus they can gradually build up and lead to big changes in your health and appearance.