One Mindset Shift That Will Transform Your Health For Good
In our culture, a conventional approach to health might commonly look and sound something like this:
We make diet and lifestyle decisions from a place of...
Self-judgement: "Ugh, my thighs look fat. I’m cutting all carbs this week."
Compensation: "Next week on vacation I'll probably eat and drink a sh*t ton, so this week I have to go to spin class every day."
Punishment: "Last night I ate 4 pieces of pizza so today I better double up my work out.”
Obligation: "The enchiladas sound amazing, but I need to be good so I'll just get a salad."
We use our internal food police (good and bad beliefs about food), restriction and eating as "perfectly" (or as little) as possible to "reverse damage" or achieve results. So what's the problem with these approaches?
They damage our self-esteem and body image.
They encourage "all on" then "all off" behavior.
They cause us to ignore our inherent mind-body connection.
They set us up for failure.
The result of all of this?
Pursuing health becomes stressful, frustrating, exhausting and therefore inconsistent and unsustainable.
Does any of this sound familiar? If so, you're not alone. Regardless of how healthy your relationship with food may be or not, we have all been influenced by diet culture. Ironically (or not so ironically), diet culture is responsible for making the pursuit of health not so healthy. Many of the misconceptions about what health truly is are a product of diet culture. More on rejecting diet culture to come, but how can we begin to shift our mindset and motivation so that pursuing health becomes sustainable and enjoyable?
Begin by having an honest conversation with yourself around your current motivation in pursuing health. Is it rooted in wanting to simply change the way your body looks? Is it coming from a place of self-kindness or from self-judgment? Observe how you speak to yourself and what thoughts precede your "healthy" behaviors.
In order to be consistent in your health, your desire to be healthy must be rooted in the fact that you already love and respect yourself, not *so that* you can become something worthy of love and respect.
This mindset shift may not happen overnight and does require intentional effort. However, once you begin to pursue health from a place of self-love and self-care, only then are you truly capable of reaching your highest expression of health - one that is sustainable, consistent and enjoyable!