Written by Matthew Gines, MS, CNS
Here’s a hard pill to swallow but it is truth and truth will set you free. You must unlearn as much as you learn. You have to be open-minded enough to collect new data and change you’re old way of thinking. Learn to have a better, healthier relationship with food and know that consistency is key. Planning and preparation is also key. There’s an old saying that I love that says “when you fail to plan, you are planning to fail”. Also, we have to move away from this All or nothing mentality. It’s just wrong. Stick to a protocol and be consistent, but just know that if you fall off a bit you can always start again. Your Perspective is everything. Change your way of thinking. Take the phrase “I don’t have time” and strike it from your vocabulary for good! Believe me when I tell you that we make time for the things we want to make time for. Your subscriptions to Netflix and NFL Redzone are proof of that and the hours spent binging. Don’t get me wrong, many of us have kids, families, pets, full-time jobs, etc. But it still holds true, we make time for the things we want to make time for. Do a little inventory of how you spend your daily life and you’ll see. Pleasure is the most fleeting and harmful virtue ever in existence. Do yourself a favor and fight with everything you’ve got inside you against instant gratification. Embrace temporary pain for future rewards rather than instant gratification. The latter will get you nowhere fast because time waits for no one. One of the most eye-opening things I’ve learned since hitting 40 is that time is going to pass regardless if you take action or not so it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to reach your destination just do. Move. Act! You see, action kills anxiety because most of our anxious thoughts and being indecisive comes from the lie of what if?…. What if I fail? What if I embarrass myself? What if I’m not good enough? One step of action at a time will eventually kill those imaginary myths we all tell ourselves day in and day out. Confidence is not built in the familiar things. Confidence is built from taking actions that we would not normally do. The things that scare us. The unknown. We humans fear the unknown so we stick to what is familiar, even though it’s not where we want to be.
Accountability is a useful tool. Embrace it and use it. We were not meant to get at it alone. Good intentions deliver zero results. Even coaches need coaches. Think about when you were in school. If you knew your teacher was going to call on you for that answer to that question, you made damn sure you knew the answer or risk being humiliated in front of all your peers and that crush you had. It’s the same idea with having an accountability partner or a coach.
We all need someone to be accountable to and to empower us. YOU hold the key to the best version of yourself. I’m just there to remind you of this and to help you stay on the path.
Being rigid will get you nowhere. Whether you say you can do it or you can’t, you’re right. The only thing keeping us from our goals is us and the bs we tell ourselves we can’t do.
Lifting weights can suck. Cooking healthy, delicious meals can suck. Getting up an extra hour to run or meal prep can suck. Embrace the suckiness. Being overweight is hard. Getting into shape is hard. Choose your hard. Being out of shape is difficult. Getting into shape is difficult. Choose your difficult. Healthy lifestyle is more than just eating “healthy” and working out. And fitness and health is more than just looking good naked. This is a nice side effect however. At the danger of sounding cliché it is very true. It’s about creating a lifestyle, not going on a diet or waiting for some new year’s resolution you’ll never follow through on. When you are finally able to achieve the results you’ve always wanted believe me when I tell you (Because I’ve lived it) you will gain a new found confidence that will trickle down into all aspects of your life. Professionally, personally, with your family, kids, etc. Because when you look good, you feel good and this greatly benefits your mental well-being. I address all facets of health. Mind. Body. Spirit. You cannot achieve wellness if you’re missing any one of these parts. You can eat all the kale you want and lift all the weights you want, but if you’re mental health is off you’re gonna miss it.
With everything in life, you MUST have boundaries in place and they must be enforced. In relationships, property ownership, fitness. Whatever it is, you need boundaries in order to be successful. If your thing is eating dry chicken breast, kale and steamed broccoli and you actually enjoy those things, cool. I question your sanity, but to each his own. BUT if you’re normal like the rest of us, you find the mere mention of eating like this as cruel and unusual punishment. On the other end of that spectrum is another question: Do you love to eat cheeseburgers, pizza, sub sandwiches and ice cream? Who doesn’t right? I’ll show you how and why you can eat and enjoy these kinds of foods, BUT you’ll need to enforce those boundaries we mentioned. What you do most of the time will determine the results you end up with.