Nutrition Mindset

The problem with our culture is we treat everything like a secret. "What's your diet secrets?" "What's your fitness secrets?" "Health secrets from Hollywood celebrities" "This ONE THING we just learned is your secret to success" "Click here to reveal the secret to staying younger and having a better love life" "The secret to 6 pack abs" I could go on and on.  Our society is obsessed with attention.  Everyone wants you to click their link so they will say whatever buzz words they can to swing your opinions in their direction hoping that you haven't heard of the secret they claim to reveal; usually hoping to sell you something on this amazing discovery.  This creates the impression that it's impossible for you to get healthy, or have great skin, or have strong abs unless you uncover all these secrets. Educate yourself.  You do this by keeping an open mind and reading quality resources.  When you come ac...

You don't get to choose when your body makes changes.  A major adjustment that will help, well probably everyone, is to hear that we need to make sure our expectations align with reality.  Just because you started a new fitness plan doesn't mean you have visible muscle changes next week. (I'm sorry it doesn't work that way).  You may feel sore and perhaps feel like you should look different, but physiologically you cannot speed up a process that takes a minimum of 4-6 weeks before anything will start to resemble a change; and even that is pushing it.  Let's reasonably adjust that to 8 weeks of consistent healthy behaviors before you go over-analyzing, judging yourself and changing the routine because you're frustrated you aren't getting results. Even more magnified now in our immediacy driven culture, we think if we do some great changes for a day, or even a week, we should reap immediate rewards.  Guess what, you are, you're just looking for the wrong w...

Do you tend to have an attitude of "I will learn and figure this out" or do you run away from things you don't know? Answer honestly.  It's human nature to ignore the things we don't understand or fear.  So honestly, everyone could answer "run away."  You have to practice consistently creating a mentality that embraces learning and improving when faced with something that makes you uncomfortable. I'm going to say that one more time, " You have to practice consistently creating a mentality that embraces learning and improving when faced with something that makes you uncomfortable." Don't just push nutrition aside if you're not good at it; you have to adopt the right mentality. Yes, it's much easier to just go through the motions following your routinely habits. Taking an effort to learn and make changes is tough, it may even be terrifying or overwhelming for you. Remember, we're not going for perfect. Your attempts do not ...

What is your nutrition identity? Said another way, "How do you think about food?" or "What drives your eating habits?" How we see ourselves controls our actions and decisions through the day. Let me give you some examples: Do you motivate yourself with guilt? If yes, making decisions is going to come from a negative place, always making yourself feel bad and guilty so that you are forced to make good decisions.  That's a lot of self-imposed stress! Do you feel that food is an enemy and it keeps you from getting what you want or looking the way you want?  Ok, food is literally just energy, you must consume it if you want to live. To have a negative outlook on something that is vital for life is going to drive your decision making very differently than if you appreciated all that food can do for you. Are you naturally thin and think "I can eat whatever I want," so you never pay attention to the quality of the food you are eating? That identity, that thou...

 Let's jump right into this- your mindset towards food needs to be positive.  If the idea of even talking about food makes you shut down, get mad, get defensive, or makes you want to click away from reading, then that's the first recognized mental block.  Please stay with me.  Our society puts so much stress on perfection and then bombards us with way too many choices, all of which are proven wrong by other options.  There's no way to be perfect with too much confusion and way too much criticism for your decisions.  How do you change your attitude towards food then?  You become confident in your choices and you don't worry about the criticism and judgments from society (easier said than done, but don't worry, that's what I'm here to help fix, you don't already have to know how to do that). This was a disgraceful ad on my Facebook the other day.  Now exercise is bad advice and it's all about hormones?!?!  What they are not telling you is that ...