Realistic changes specific for you versus drastic changes that won’t stick…
Any changes require your body and mind to be in sync. If we are making changes randomly without any thought or reason it generally never resonates and therefore becomes short-term. Until I started my own journey 6 years ago now I never connected the two. I would make changes to my nutrition, most of the time drastic changes that were not right for my body.
I would choose the most energy-burning workouts and not fuel my body correctly for them. I would then Sustain this change for a few months at the most and then end up back where I started. It was only when I decided to select realistic nutrition and fitness that my mindset started change and the changes started to stick.
Small Changes over time
Deciding on small changes over time that are good for your body are the ones that will stick for life. I spent so much time listening to suggestions from others on what they believed would be good for my body.
I would stick with these changes for a while and then go back to what I was doing before. The majority of the time it would be about stripping something permanently from my nutrition or doing a ridiculous amount of exercise which was supposed to help me.
Taking on board the small change mindset for the good of my own body was the key to success.
Nutrition Changes
There are so many suggestions out there on what we should or shouldn’t eat. While there are somethings that certain people absolutely need to avoid due to an intolerance or allergies, this is not the same for all of us.
You may find there are certain foods that make you feel bloated, sluggish, sickly or hyper. You could be a person who’s body prefers less meat and more vegetables or visa versa. I have this issue with carbohydrates, in that I feel bloated and my digestion is not at its best when I eat certain foods.
The standard resolution for this is to remove foods high in carbohydrates from your nutrition. While this may be ok for some people this did not benefit me. Removing all just made me feel sluggish and unsatisfied when I ate my meals.
What I did find was that I focused more on removing/minimising certain carbohydrates from my nutrition which I found made me feel bloated and created issues with digestion. This for me was rice, bread and pasta and I continued to eat the likes of potatoes but still kept a check on how this made me feel and reduced the amount if required.
This is just one of the tweaks I made over time and due to this I could see and feel the difference and benefits, so this has stuck and became naturally part of my new lifestyle.
Movement that makes you happy
Movement is so good for the body and is even more beneficial if you love the exercise that you do. I have always been obsessive about exercise. Always selecting the most calorie burning workout I could find which resulted in these workouts ending as quick as they begun. Workouts like CrossFit, bootcamps, spinning classes, Hitt training, running etc.
With my changing mindset over time I started to realise that this needed to change and that anything that I chose to do needed to feel good for my body at that time in my life. When it felt good I wanted to continue to do it. I also learned to vary what I did to benefit my body and mind.
I am currently focused on walking, hiking and yoga. This is not to say that I wont be taking on other workouts moving forward. At the moment my body is loving this sort of movement and if at any stage I want to change it up then I will go with it.
Fuel your body for your own lifestyle
Finding the right amount of food required for your lifestyle is also very specific to you. I was always so OTT when it came to calorie counting. Always fixated on calories in and calories out, I thought if I had this under control then I would be able to lose and maintain my weight.
This never worked for me and left me frustrated and confused. Along side being obsessed with finding the miracle nutrition and fitness plan that gave me the results I desperately wanted. Not a good combination!
When I started to listen to my body and trust what foods where good for my body was when it all changed. I started to then naturally fuel myself when required. Trusting this process was key for me and I started to and continue to reap the benefits.
Delay don’t deny tool
Another key to success with changes you make along the way is around the ‘delay don’t deny’ tool. This is something Gin Stephens, writer of ‘Delay Don’t deny’ coined. This is a really brilliant mindset tool that gets you to hold back on eating certain foods for a period of time to see if it benefits your body.
You get yourself out of the mindset of never touching another piece of bread, sweet, glass of wine etc. Instead you are delaying having it to another time, allowing you to break that cycle of eating or drinking things daily, and having it when you really feel like having it.
Feeling good equals a permanent change
Based on these changes it made me think about why all these changes stuck for me.
It was all due to how good it made me feel. If I had made the changes and felt no different but rather unsatisfied then I would not have stuck with this change.
When you start to feel better in yourself you want to continue to feel this way. You look at yourself in a different way and you never want to go back to the old version of you.
This journey of change will give you a newfound respect for your body and mind, and what amazing things it can do. Giving it the nutrition, movement, rest, and respect, it needs to run at its optimum level.
Your body is the platform for everything in your life…
