A good article posted this morning in our Nutrition Group which by the way is doing an AWESOME job!!! 23 days to go and I KNOW we are going to see GREAT results! Keep it up people! đ
Watch your thoughts for they become words. Watch your words for they become actions. Watch your actions for they become habits. Watch your habits for they become your character. And watch your character for it becomes your destiny. What we think, we become.
-Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady
The greatest enemy of a healthy lifestyle is your own mind. You can make it work with a small budget; you can make it work with kids; you can make it work on the road â but you canât make it work unless you believe that you can.
Thatâs a huge stumbling block for so many people. For every Angie stepping up to bat and turning her life around, thereâs someone else out there thinking âI canât do this. Iâm overweight. Iâve been overweight my whole life. Iâm just not a healthy person.â Those thoughts create a whole identity around being sick and overweight. And once fall into that identity, itâs almost impossible to act differently: it just isnât you.
But you can change that identity, from the inside out. Start acting and talking like the person you want to become, and youâll start thinking like that person. And once you change the way you think about behavior, and the behavior itself will follow.
I Canât vs. I Donât
One of the most common questions from people who are just starting out is âcan I have __________?â. Can I have gluten-free bread? Can I have stevia? Can I have coconut sugar? Can I have apple juice?
Well, hereâs the ultimate answer for every single one of those questions: yes.
Yes, you can have any of these things. You can have gluten-free bread â or even regular, gluten-loaded bread, if you want it â all you have to do is go to the store. Thatâs the magic of the industrial food system: itâs all right there at your fingertips. Even if you make the commitment to eat Paleo, there is no all-powerful Healthy Food God reaching down to smack the Twinkie out of your hand. Youâre an adult; you can eat pretty much anything you want.
So why do so many of us refuse unhealthy food by saying âI canât have thatâ?
That might sound like just splitting hairs â after all, youâre really just using âI canât have thatâ as a kind of shorthand for âIâm choosing not to eat that, because I know itâs not good for me in the long run.â You know that you could eat it, but you also know itâs not healthy for you, so youâve decided that you wonât. So does it really matter what words you use?
Yes. The way you talk to other people â and the way you talk to yourself â about your life choices is incredibly significant. A study from the Journal of Consumer Research found that just saying âI canâtâ vs. âI donâtâ actually made an enormous difference in the subjectsâ everyday lives. Dieters who were coached to say âI canâtâ struggled more with food cravings and felt more deprived when they tried to resist unhealthy food, while dieters who were coached to say âI donâtâ felt happier with their choices, and were more likely to stick with it in the long term.
Thatâs because âI canâtâ means deprivation. It means youâd like to eat whatever it is, but youâre not allowed. And every parent of a 5-year-old knows that the fastest way to make something irresistible is to make it forbidden. When you say âI canât have cake,â youâre setting yourself up as a passive victim of the big mean Paleo Diet Dictator, and thatâs a miserable way to live. Itâs no surprise that people have a hard time sticking to a diet when they talk about it like that.
On the other hand, âI donâtâ is a statement of power. Every time you say âI donât eat junk,â youâre claiming the power to define your identity as a healthy person. Just by saying the words, or even just by thinking them, youâre putting yourself in charge of your own life. Itâs empowering. And human beings like power: it makes us feel good. Youâre a lot more likely to stick with that positive, empowered feeling than the unhappy deprived feeling of âI canât.â
You can use this for everything. âI donât eat junk food.â âI donât skip the gym.â âI donât drink soda.â Whatever you want to change in your life, start by mentally reframing yourself as the kind of person who does/doesnât do whatever it is.
But Isnât That Lying?
What if you donât really believe that you are that kind of person? If you caved in to the chocolate-chip cookies last night when you were stressed, is it really truthful to say âI donât eat cookiesâ the next morning? Or maybe you really do feel deprived, and youâre tired of all this positive-attitude woo woo trying to convince you to just think happy thoughts. Sometimes you might feel like a total imposter, or just a liar when you say âI donât.â
Hereâs the thing, though: by saying it, youâre making it true. This has actually been well-documented as a psychological phenomenon. âFaking it âtill you make itâ creates a kind of positive feedback loop, and your words and behavior can actually change your thought patterns. The same is true for confidence and social skills: if you ask someone to act confident, even if it feels forced at first, then theyâll start actually feeling confident after a while. Even if theyâre totally acting and inside theyâre absolutely terrified, the acting still helps. One study found that body language does this too; for example, just crossing your arms can help you be more persistent.
This power to re-shape your own thought processes is huge. It means that it doesnât matter if you âarenât a healthy person,â because you always have the power to make yourself into one. You get to decide what kind of person you want to be: you just have to start playing the role, and eventually youâll become the character.
The Power of âI Donâtâ
There are all kinds of benefits to framing your decisions this way â benefits that go way beyond what you put in your mouth.
First of all, âI donâtâ actually introduces a lot of positive energy to the environment. When you calmly and confidently assert your own identity, itâs a lot more attractive to other people than the woe-is-me attitude of âI canât.â Everyone respects people who take control of their own lives, and when you say âI donâtâ instead of âI canât,â youâre putting yourself in that category.
It also frees you up from the self-centered spiral of feeling deprived and unhappy. When you spend a family dinner focusing on how unhappy you are because you âcanât haveâ lasagna, youâre not really there to enjoy the evening. Itâs a double deprivation: not only are you feeling deprived because of your diet, but youâre also deprived of the love, companionship, and social interaction that youâd otherwise be getting. When you calmly decide that âI donât eat lasagna,â then you get a double benefit: no more food deprivation and you can actually enjoy the company.
âI donâtâ also leaves you a lot less open to people trying to persuade you otherwise. If you say âI canât,â everyone knows youâre feeling deprived. And because they like you and want you to feel happy, theyâll try to persuade you that yes, you really can. Theyâll try to give you âpermissionâ to break your diet, thinking that it will help you relax and feel good. On the other hand, âI donâtâ doesnât leave you open to well-meaning justifications about âjust this onceâ or âjust a little bit.â You donât. Full stop.
The Fear of âI donâtâ
Despite all the benefits, shifting your thought patterns like this can be very frightening. If youâve built your whole identity around being sick, if youâve always experienced the world as a sick person, then being sick is part of who you are. Trying to change that identity is a huge leap of faith, and itâs absolutely terrifying. Whatâs going to be on the other side? Who will you even be, if you arenât sick? Maybe you donât like your identity right now, but at least itâs familiar, and thatâs a kind of safety and comfort.
You can tell that this fear is holding you back if you start feeling a lot of resistance towards changing your habits, or you start stubbornly clinging to your âI canâtâ statements. Maybe youâre saying something to yourself like âthat wonât work for me â Iâm too far gone to change myself just like that. Itâs stupid.â
That kind of rejection is your lizard brain, clinging desperately to its old identity. See how âIâm too far goneâ is a statement of identity, just like âI donâtâŚâ? To your brain, new = scary, and the response is an all-out defense of all your comfortable, familiar habits and thought patterns.
Pushing past this kind of resistance is incredibly tough. The first step is to recognize that itâs going on, but it takes a lot of work even after that. Sometimes it takes several different tries. Sometimes it takes professional help, someone to work through the fear with you.
You can do it.
Do what you can to nourish the positive thoughts, but remember that itâs not the end of the world if you get stuck back in the trap of âI canâtâ for a while. You have as many chances to succeed as youâre willing to give yourself. Maybe it has to be two steps forward, one step back all the way, but youâll eventually make it there. You have got what it takes to make changes in your own life; you just have to believe it.
