This is the first of a miniseries, to give you all the things you need to start and sustain a healthy lifestyle. This is a follow-up to some of my past posts, in which I’ve laid out tips or steps for getting started with a healthy lifestyle. It involves 3 key things to not just start but sustain a healthy lifestyle: mindset, nutrition, and exercise, and they are in that order on purpose. I am starting this off with mindset, because it is the most important component.
If you are ready to end what I call the start-stop cycle of insanity with weight loss, dieting, exercise, then this miniseries is what you need. You can also grab a copy of my e-book, Fit Phoenix 6-Week Slim Down, which goes in depth on all of this and provides everything you need to start a healthy lifestyle. Grab it today and kickstart your healthy lifestyle!
I know how overwhelming and frustrating it can be to make changes in your daily routine, especially those related to exercise and nutrition. I also know how hard it can be to sustain these changes long-term. Before I get into the mindset tips for today’s episode, since this is a miniseries following a past episode, I will quickly re-cap some of what I have covered in past episodes, since this is what I am covering in weeks ahead in this miniseries.
1. Determine WHY you are embarking on this journey.
2. Set clear, specific goals.
3. Shift your mindset.
4. Detach from timelines and expectations.
5. Nutrition vs. dieting.
6. Hydration.
7. Exercise.
8. Sleep and rest.
9. Commit.
10. Plan
11. Prepare.
As I have shared before, I have been battling my weight and body dysmorphia most of my life. I have tried all the things. I have read as much as I can get my hands on about it. I have studied it and applied what I’ve studied for over 30 years. It wasn’t until about 8 years ago that I found what had been the missing link in all of it, which was the mindset.
My lack of awareness around the role of mindset, my own mindset, and how to change my mindset was holding me back and keeping me in the start-stop cycle of insanity. When I gained this awareness and started the work to shift my mindset, everything changed.
Mindset is so important because it governs all aspects of your behavior. Most of us aren’t particularly aware of our mindset, let alone how powerful our thoughts, beliefs, and words are. This is why it is critical to start with the mindset components of a healthy lifestyle. So, let’s dive in.
Alright, so, let’s get into the key things related to mindset you need to do before you start making any other changes:
- Become aware – take stalk of how you currently feel about your weight and your body. What emotions come up? What types of things do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror?
From here you can start getting at your why. - Determine WHY you are embarking on this journey.
Your why is like your compass and your guiding light. Without it you could get lost and lose momentum pretty quickly. This also really helps you to connect on a deeper level with this whole change process. Determining your why is fairly straight forward, it is simply to answer the question: why do you want to lose weight or transform your body? Be honest with yourself about this and go deeper than a certain number on the scale or the physical outcomes you might have in mind. Do you want to FEEL better? Do you want more energy? Do you want to be a better mom, wife, partner? These are just examples.
Another way to approach this is to start with asking yourself how your weight is affecting you and what you are ready to change. I’ll give you some of my examples from when I did this for myself. I was fed up with crying every morning because I hated how everything looked on me. I was tired of being tired. I was sick of trying to hide in clothes and pictures. I was over avoiding social settings and interactions because I had such a negative body image and felt so uncomfortable in my own skin. Most of all, I knew I wasn’t at my best and I wanted to be a better version of myself for my children.
You may have all sorts of other things you’re fed up with or ready to change. The point is it is essential to your long-term success to have strong motivation beyond just a certain weight. This is your carrot through this journey. This is what is what you will come back to over and over and over as you do this. Hint: a spot-on, fire in your belly why will make you emotional thinking about and writing about. You want to find that feeling driving you toward doing this as well as the reciprocal feeling you imagine achieving your goal will bring. - Set clear, specific goals.
Now that you have gotten clear on why you are embarking on this lifestyle change, it is time to set clear, specific goals. If the why is your compass and guiding light, your goals are the destination. Most of the time, people aren’t that great about setting goals. I often hear really vague “goals” like, I want to lose some weight, or I want to get past the first week. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with these, but they lack specificity and long-term vision.
It is important to keep in mind that this is all 100% in the mind – yes, nutrition and exercise are quite important too, but if the mind isn’t on your side, you are setting yourself up for an even steeper climb. One of the best ways to get your mind working for you in all of this is to give it clear goals and then program these into your brain. You do this by setting clear, specific goals and reading them and stating them out loud to yourself daily, as often as possible. This is going to set your subconscious on a mission to make these goals reality.
So, in addition to clarity and specificity you want to start your goals as follows: I am so happy and thankful now that…Again, this sets the subconscious on a mission and it reframes that goal as something that has already happened as opposed to something off in a distant future, far, far away. Create two goals, one that is your long-term or sort of end point in terms of weight or physique, such as losing 50 pounds or achieving 20% body fat. Next create a short term goal and modify these as you hit each one. So, if your long-term is 50 pounds then a good short term is to lose 10 pounds in the first month or 20 in the first 3 months, or something along these lines. - Shift your mindset.
A couple things here, this is really about reframing what you are doing. Too often, people are looking for a quick fix or a short-sighted solution or result. This is partly due to the many fads out there promising miraculous weight loss in 30 days or 6 weeks or whatever. If you want to succeed, you have to throw this line of thinking out; it is not serving you. You have to recognize that this is a lifestyle; it is a marathon, not a race. Even when you reach the target of x pounds lost, it won’t last long if you stop there. You have to sustain the effort in order to maintain the results. - Detach from timelines and expectations.
This is very much tied to the previous tip and is another sort of paradigm that isn’t doing you any favors. There are no quick fixes and everyone will arrive at their goal in different timeframes, because every body is different. The fitness industry will do anything to sell you a program, including promising practically impossible results in even more impossible timeframes. There are way too many factors to take into account, and way too many variations from person to person to be able to make any type of declaration or guarantee of specific results in specific timeframes.
I imagine many of you have heard such claims over and over. I have learned these kinds of one-size fits all approaches, fit and work for almost nobody. Let go of the crazy goal and the short timeframe. Do not expect to lose 35 pounds in 21 days. Shift your focus to looking better, feeling better, fitting your clothes better, and changing your body composition instead of losing a set number of pounds. Now, reflect back on your why and I’ll bet this shift is much more aligned with that, than losing 35 pounds in 21 days. The goal here is to make a lasting lifestyle change that you maintain for life. Moreover, the goal is health – whole health, and yes, part of that is weight loss or fitness, but it is so much more than that. I’m telling you, when I realized this, it changed the game for me.
Alright, friends, that’s it for this first chapter of this series. I will continue the series next week, diving into nutrition vs. dieting. I recommend following along with the series to start creating your healthy lifestyle today. Follow the steps I’ve laid out here before next week, so you are ready to take the next steps. Grab my e-book today and you’ll find all the things you need, including a workbook that guides you through all of this mindset steps I’ve laid out today. As always, thanks so much for stopping by!