THE TRIPLE THREAT TO MENTAL NEGATIVITY TOWARD HEALTHY NUTRITION
I recently wrote a blog entitled 3 Successful Tips for Healthy Eating Even before You Take Your First Bite which explained a fast-track to healthy eating if you want to start now. However, the tips I am going to share today are the ones I consider to be the most influential in producing the results you want for healthy nutrition. I call these three tips the “Triple Threat” because they are a threat to the negative mindset individuals have before taking on a nutrition endeavor. Nutrition doesn’t happen without reshaping the mind first. As a matter of fact, think about all the reasons as to why you haven’t taken up healthy eating. Instead, let me see if I can do it for you. Does this sound familiar? “I don’t have the time”, “I don’t have the money”, “I will always be fat”, “I don’t know which diet to follow”, “I have already tried dieting and it didn’t work”, “I don’t want to stop eating my favorite foods”, “Diets are too strict”, “My family won’t support me”, “Dieting will never work for me”, “I’m too busy”, “I’m too tired”, “I don’t know what to do”, “I don’t have the motivation”, and on, and on, and on. These aren’t just excuses but, rather, this vocabulary shapes your mind and puts you in a negative state mentally and when you’re in a negative state mentally you are sure to be in a negative state physically. This negative mental state is sure to hold you back from reaching your nutrition goals. Think about it, when have you ever heard of something great being accomplished because that person was in a negative mental state? Never! It takes emotional states such as passion, enthusiasm, courage, resourcefulness, positive and energizing emotional states that will move you to accomplish something great.
So what can you start doing mentally, today, which will guarantee your success in the undertaking of healthy eating? Before I get to the three things that will put you on the path of nutrition success I want to remind you that when reshaping the mind there is never an overnight fix. Instead, as you practice and repeat these activities daily you will begin to gain momentum towards your desired goal. So here we go! I call the three most important factors that will set you on the path to nutrition success the Triple Threat.
Stop looking at every unsuccessful attempt you’ve had toward healthy eating as a failure. Now, I do understand that the meaning of failure means that there was an unsuccessful attempt at something but associating yourself with the word fail automatically makes you completely stop, or quit, at doing something because it instills an emotional feeling of worthlessness. As a matter of fact, think about how society uses the word fail. Isn’t it true that when someone does something dumb, or embarrassing, many people yell out “FAIL”! Or even worse “EPIC FAIL”!? And just hearing that word, let alone when it’s directed toward you, can make you feel so bad that you’re convince you really are a failure. Now think about the self-defeating statements I mentioned at the beginning of this blog. Don’t they convey a sense of failure? And if that is your conditioned mentality going into a venture such as healthy eating it’s a certainty that it will be extremely difficult to achieve your nutrition goals.
Instead do this, every time you are unsuccessful at your attempt to eat healthy, or anything else for that matter, substitute the word ‘failure’ for the word ‘result’ or ‘outcome’. So, instead of verbally or mentally saying “I failed” say “that’s not the result I wanted”, or “I didn’t desire that outcome”. By not using the word failure you avoid the pang it delivers to your psyche which prevents you from freezing up, or quitting whatever you were trying to accomplish. On the other hand, eliminating the word “failure” from your vocabulary enables you to be resourceful so that you break through the barrier that is holding you back from reaching your goal.
Quit visiting all the occasions in which you were unsuccessful at following a healthy eating plan. You’re negative physical and emotional state is produced by the trips you mentally take to the darkest places in your mind, mainly all the times you replay a failed venture. So instead of dwelling on the past start focusing on the result you want from eating healthy. Whether it’s seeing yourself in a bikini, or fitting into the jeans you once wore, or seeing yourself with more energy, your goal will be accomplished if you can clearly see yourself accomplishing it. You see, the mind can’t tell the difference between what is imagined and what is experienced so when you can clearly focus your mind on a result you want, even if it is completely exaggerated, your emotions are put into a positive state and your body will be invigorated to put you in motion toward your goal.
Practice Mindfulness meditation. Now, I understand that for some, the word “meditation” can be a total turn-off, but before you conjure up an idea of what Mindfulness meditation is let me define Mindfulness meditation in the simplest of terms. Simply put, Mindfulness meditation is brain resistance training. I realize that meditation means different things to each individual but Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, a leading Mindfulness expert and founder of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, gave Mindfulness meditation the definition of brain resistance training. There’s no religion, no God, no Buddha, no aligning of the chakras, no feeling “one” with nature in Mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation is accomplished by focusing on the present moment usually done by paying strong attention to the breath. This practice helps an individual use the portion of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. The ability to use this part of the brain not only increases an individual’s ability to be more creative and focused, but it also conditions the brain to treat thoughts as thoughts instead of being fully attached to them. With this result, any negative self-talk, or thought, which arises during your journey of healthy eating will be treated by your mind the same as a cloud that simply drifts by the blue sky. Here for the moment and gone the next. Having a mind that is completely desensitized from negative thinking is a huge stepping stone towards achieving your nutrition goals.
So, this is what I like to call the Triple Threat to conditioning your mind for nutrition success. Keep in mind that it takes time and repetition to condition the mind to produce the results you want. The key is to practice the Triple Threat daily and view them as activities that will create a mentally stronger YOU instead of chores to redundantly do. As you gain mental momentum you are sure to make significant progress toward your nutrition goal, and from that point on there will be nothing that will stop you from arriving at your desired nutrition destination.
