FIND LIFE PURPOSE

Life without a strong purpose feels very chaotic. This inner chaos makes life feel terrible, and its effects often manifest in unideal behaviors that negatively affect our body and mind. Having a life purpose means having a personal focus, something that all other areas of life revolve around, including health. If you don’t have a strong life purpose, I recommend first exploring what you enjoy and value. Then, once you have a better sense of who you uniquely are, make a commitment to develop your talents and share them with the others. Becoming great, especially at something you value brings meaning, motivation, and self esteem to life. It also protects us from codependency or enmeshment, where we lose ourselves in another person’s needs. So start with finding a strong life purpose! And if you don’t have one, make it your purpose to find it.

GRANT PERMISSION

Grant yourself total permission to do the things that make you happy. This is crucial because we all need a certain amount of what I call “feel goods” in our day; if food is our only “feel good” we have permission for, it’s pretty much inevitable we will take in more energy than our body needs.

I believe in filling our life and time with as many diverse “feel goods” as we can, for me I enjoy things like nature, family time, community engagement, decorating, shopping, reading a good book, dancing, taking a warm shower or spending time with friends. When food is the only permittable source of excitement and comfort then the thought of eating less can feel very depressing. It’s crucial to our health that we fill our “feel good” quota each day with a variety of things that enrich our life- lest we turn to the easy things that only end up hurting us.

Finally, I have found that one of the best “feel goods” is setting my eye on a goal, doing the work and getting results. A mindset of hope and enthusiasm over where you are going and how far you have come is a potent “feel good” that can offset the pain required to get where you want to go.

CATCH A VISION

In order to get emotionally enthused about the future, we need a vision. Punitive thoughts like “I need to lose weight” as if your self acceptance depends on it, are not effective, often only motivating us for a short period of time. Positive thoughts like, “I want to feel, sexy, strong and free!”, however, not only feel better, but have more longevity to them. And in the game of health, we definitely need longevity on our side.

Also, it’s important that we define what health and beauty looks like to us. What feels like “home” in my body will look and feel different than what “home’ is for you. It’s important that we all define for ourselves how we want to look and feel in our own skin- never allowing society or others to define it for us- including how we choose to eat!

Our vision of our future is also important because we are going to need to go back to it often. It’s not a one and done thing. If we lose sight of our desire, then whatever game plan we set up for ourselves will quickly morph into a soulless taskmaster. The minute you start to feel the inner tyrant take over, this is your sign to go back to your original vision- empowering the real you in taking back the wheel. Every day should feel like a love-me party!

SET THE PACE

Now that you have a vision, it’s time to set the pace. Whether you desire to lose body fat, gain muscle, or maintain your physique, we must set a sustainable pace. We don’t sprint marathons, and we don’t jog sprints, at least if you want to succeed.

Pacing is about learning the difference between haste and hustle- with hustle being desirable and haste- not so much. In my experience, haste, which is essentially being overeager, always eventually leads to failure. Hustle, on the other hand, ensures that we are making progress without burning out. Avoid haste by accepting who you are today; pursue goals out of self-love and joy as opposed to desperation and fear.

You might also judge between haste and hustle by learning to be intuitive with pain, for some pain calls us to stop and some pain calls us to push through. For example, if you are doing squats and feel a burn in your thighs, pushing through might be a good idea, but if your muscle feels like it’s tearing, this is your signal to stop. Sometimes it takes experience to know the difference between these pain thresholds; a litmus test that I use to keep my pacing in check, is to ask myself if I am wearing an inner smile. If the answer is no, then chances are I am going too hard (or have lost sight of my vision).

Finally, I always make sure that my goals are set and fueled by a desire for my own happiness, not by my own feelings of inadequacy or out of attempting to control how other perceive me as these motivations never bring happiness or lead anywhere good.

PRIORITIZE PROTEIN

One of the biggest keys to a healthy body and diet is prioritizing protein. Not only does protein help to satiate us- thereby enabling us to keep our calorie intake low, but the body also doesn’t metabolize much of it for energy. Instead of being used for energy, it is broken down into amino acids by the body to be used for building muscle, bones, skin, hormones and enzymes. BUT, any protein that the body doesn’t need will be used for fuel. The body will just always choose to use carbohydrates and fats for energy first.

So although I prioritize protein in my diet, especially while lifting weights and wanting to build muscle, too much places a metabolic burden on the body- so like most things, I recommend being moderate, intuitive and wise.

REGULATE INSULIN

Another key to creating a healthy lifestyle with food is regulating your insulin. Insulin is the hormone that enables tissue growth and fat storage. When it is low, the body is able to tap into our stored energy, and when it is high our body is unable to use up our energy stores. We primarily lower insulin by lowering our carbohydrate intake, but pairing carbohydrates with fats, proteins and fiber will also help. And like most things, too much of a good thing can be a problem, so too low of insulin is not ideal either. For me, making sure to eat a sufficient amount of carbohydrates (about 100g each day) keeps my hormones in check and ensures that I have enough energy for my daily activities.

I recommend checking out levels.com for more on this topic.

STAY IN REALITY

Cookie crumbs are calories too. Personally, this has been my achilles heal. It has taken me years to break out of the silly illusion that mindless picking at food somehow doesn’t count. Just because we check out mentally, doesn’t mean our body is checking out too. The body is science and will always be truthful to the reality, so the more we can keep our mind there too, the more we empower ourselves to get results.

Ultimately, I believe in making decisions. For example, CHOOSE to eat the cookie crumbs, if you wish, but try to not let the body make decisions for you. In some ways I see my body like my child: it’s going to want a whole lot of things that are NOT good for it, but it’s also going to want a whole lot of things that ARE good for it. My job is to be loving enough to say YES at times, but also loving enough to say NO when necessary. And Above all, the more we keep our minds aligned with reality, the better off we will be.

I also resisted tracking my food intake for a long time and was determined to prove that this wasn’t necessary in order to reach my wellness goals. I was wrong and see now that tracking my food, even loosely, is crucial to my success. It’s not something that needs to be perfect or obsessed about, but especially in this world of abundance, we are wise to have some degree of awareness around what we are putting in our bodies if we desire optimal health. A major key for me is to striking a balance between focus and surrender: a psychological space where I am aware of the details, but never so focussed in on them that I cannot see other important areas of my life. As the adage goes, perfect is the enemy of progress, so do your best and accept that this is enough.

MOVE

I choose to exercise daily, and vary my activities from day to day to ensure that I am maintaining all core aspects of physical fitness. I enjoy pilates for core strength, weight lifting for muscle growth, yoga for flexibility and balance, and HIIT workouts for cardiovascular strength and functional mobility. I also really enjoy walking in the outdoors with friends. :) Ultimately, I believe that exercise should be personally enjoyable. When just starting out it may not feel this way, but don’t give up! If you keep going, your body will get stronger and it’ll eventually be something that you look forward to each day.

FIND SUPPORT

Having people in our life who are aware of our goals and encouraging us along the way is helpful in keeping us focussed and motivated. Additionally, finding others on a similar journey as us might also foster a sense of community and serve to keep us accountable.

The word “accountability” was also once triggering for me because it felt too much like something outside of me that was coercing me into action. In my view, accountability is healthy when it feels light- like a gentle reminder to stay on track. The minute we feel ourselves over relying on accountability measures to coerce us, this is our signal to go back and reconnect with our vision as previously mentioned. Any plan, structure, accountability person or community are here to serve us. They do not own us. We are and will always be our own authority getting out of life what we want from it.

CONCLUSION

Finally, I truly believe that wellness is found in making EVERY DAY A LOVE ME PARTY. Life can be deeply joyful when we learn how to love ourselves in this way, for we all deserve to be living a life that is healthy, happy, authentic and free. :)

MY MINDSET