Tip #3

Nutr

Published: Aug 11, 2021

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So why is mindset so important when it comes to health & nutrition?

Well, let’s start with a question: Why do you hit the gym? Why do you want to lose weight or tone up? Why do you swap out parts of your diet? Well, ‘to look good’ simply isn’t good enough anymore.

Because why do you actually want to look good? I think you know what I’m getting at here. The majority of people don’t train to look good for anyone but the world. And why should we care about what the world has to say about us? Well, it’s because once again, we’ve been conditioned to do so. We’ve been taught to be careful with the way we act in public, and to stay quiet, and to make every effort to avoid making a scene.

Have you ever ordered something at a restaurant and sent it back? Didn't think so.

But why should we care so much about what the world thinks of us? The real answer is that we probably shouldn’t care as much as we do. I’m not saying not to care at all, but maybe just a little less.

Many people who say that they struggle to get motivated to work out, it’s because they’re doing it for the wrong reasons. The way I wired my brain to want to go and lift weights or eat better food, was by telling myself that actually, I no longer care about doing this for other people, I am going to workout to improve my mental wellbeing, and so that I can enjoy the process of doing so, which many people forget.

And the results reflected this - the first week was incredible.

By monitoring my progress not by weight, size or visible progress - but by my increase in strength, the increase in my overall state of content, and feeling considerably more energised than before - that’s how I now view progress. It is all about the state of mind. The rest will come, the slightly cinched waist, the nicely defined abdominals, losing the extra layer of fat - whatever it is - it will come.

As with everything, patience is a virtue, but if you learn to embrace the journey, life becomes a whole lot easier, and the results come seemingly much faster.

Lesson learnt here: To change the outcome, first you must change the input.

The same rule applies in business.

Next up: your diet. Now, for many people this step will be one of the most difficult to sustain. With the modern day temptations of UberEats or Deliveroo right at your fingertips - it just makes sense! I completely changed my diet in March of 2021, and haven’t gone back since. I will be writing about my diet changes in full detail in my coming articles and book, if this is of interest to our community of readers, however here are the basics:

DO: adjust your mindset to remember why you are doing this. It’s not to be ‘skinny’, it’s not to appear more ‘desirable’, it’s to clean your body, clean your mind and clean your soul.

If you are eating cleaner, thinking cleaner, and living in a cleaner space, then you, my friend, will be on a road to the highest level of success, spiritually, mentally and physically.

Remind yourself that when you pass by the mirror and there’s a little more bloat than usual, that firstly, you are probably bloated due to your poor understanding of diet, and secondly - this is absolutely normal! You think those page 1 models don’t look like you after devouring a meal too?

Of course they do! We just don’t see that side of them.

It is key to remind yourself of this, not just once, but consistently - once again, a strong mindset leads to a healthy and successful life. If you constantly bring yourself up, or at least start making excuses for yourself that it’s normal to be bloated (which it is), rather than putting yourself down, you’ll be much better off for it.

So every time you pass that mirror, about to think a negative thought - snap your fingers and replace it with a positive thought - or if it helps - don’t look in the mirror at all! We all find ourselves looking in the mirror, posing and flexing to help feed our egos, so why even put yourself through it?

DON’T: restrict yourself. The biggest mistake I see people make is to ‘go on a diet’ and then follow it for a day or week and then give up, just to beat themselves up about it the next day. Left wondering why you can’t achieve the results you want.

So why can’t you? Because most of the time you are being too restrictive, and unless your mindset is absolutely ready for a huge change in your diet, this won’t work for you. Find what works for you. Not everybody’s lifestyle, nutrition and hobbies are like yours.

Although I made a firm flip of the switch moment to clear out my fridge and replace it with clean and balanced food, it’s not for everyone - nor has that worked for me in the past either by the way.

What I’d suggest is to slowly implement some changes for your body and mind to get accustomed to. Add a green smoothie into your breakfast, change your chocolate bar for a dark chocolate bar.

I tend to enjoy ‘nked’ bars. Although on the pricier side for ‘breakfast bars’, for me, I believe they are totally worth it if you can afford to prioritise your health.

Think of it as an investment - invest in yourself, invest for life. I started buying organic vegetables as often as possible, started taking more classes and added mostly green foods to my weekly shopping list.

But it’s a gradual process.

I didn’t do everything all at once, and if you want to change your life in 24 hours, then you’ve come to the right place, but also the wrong place if you think you can just follow a diet for a week and achieve your dream body. It takes hard work to actually remember to stay in a positive mindset, however once you master it, you unlock the biggest power known to man: the best version of YOU.

Off the back of that, your ‘dream body’ is probably based on societal manipulation, and years of deep conditioning. These ‘ideal’ body types change daily, it’s hard to keep up! So why put yourself through it? It’s just a body at the end of the day, isn’t there more to life?

What’s worse is that I used to think I was ‘fat’ a few years ago, and when I look back, I think ‘wow! I was so skinny!’. It takes some getting used to, but you see your body in all stages of the day, after you’ve eaten, when you’re a little bloated, after drinking water (believe me - water weight is real!), and all sorts of times. Whereas you compare yourself to a person you see on social media, or in a magazine - but this is the way they look 1% of the time - just like you!

I bet if you put on a tonne of makeup, beauty filters, posed in a particular light with some heavy retouching that you’d look like that too! I’m here to inspire you, to become the better version of yourself, because guess what - you’re not changing you. And that's great!

Do you know what makes you the most beautiful person ever? Your beautiful mind. And that is what you need to learn to love, because at the end of the day, that's the only part of you that will remain someday.

You may have seen men or women around a person who isn’t particularly eye-catching to you right? You may think, what’s so great about them? Well my dear, it’s the energy and the confidence that attracts. It is basic science: the law of attraction. Read up on it, there are many great books out there. But in simple words, you attract what you put out there.

If you’re constantly in a low mood, self conscious and always shying away from the camera, then that is going to show, and repel. Have you ever seen somebody, possibly who isn’t your type, often the class joker, but someone who just isn’t the usual heart throb and thought ‘wow, they have a lot of confidence’ and then actually find yourself getting more and more attracted to them?

I’m sure you have had a few exes who you look back on and wonder why you ever liked them?

Well, it was probably because of the way they acted, they attracted you with the basic science of attraction, and confidence.

So build a strong and healthy mind, and start laughing more - it attracts good people! It also helps with networking too.

Circling back to the diet, I’m also a firm believer in out of sight, out of mind. Never shop on an empty stomach, because if you shop whilst you’re hungry, all your mind can concentrate on is finding quick and snacky foods to nibble on ASAP.

This is because this is the way most of us have trained our minds, so until you begin adjusting this - steer clear of shopping hungry! Once you have a full stomach, you can begin to make firm and fair decisions. Deciding to put the chocolate biscuits down and grabbing some hummus and carrot sticks instead could be the first move, or simply a better alternative of those biscuits.

Remember: if this is too hard, don’t bother just yet, and only adjust what you are able to and in small increments for the time being. If you do it all at once, it will most likely be difficult for you to maintain, so be happy with the small progress you’ve made so far!

Now, you may find that after you have done your weekly shop, and after managing to steer clear of those biscuits, that you’re sitting there relaxing on the sofa and they’re all you can think about! This is because your body is used to you feeding it those biscuits, and now it’s addicted.

Give it a couple of weeks without them and your body will completely forget they exist! Believe me, it works.

If you’ve made it so far as to not have bought those biscuits, and now they’re nowhere to be seen, you will be forced to find another alternative. Which is where the easy part comes in! If you don't have unhealthy foods in the house, you won't eat them. Your body may be signalling to your brain that it’s hungry, but it’s not your brain that tells it that it needs those biscuits - it’s you! And with them not being easily accessible to you, your lazy mood is suddenly put into survival mode, as you realise you have to actually prepare a snack! This is great, and you will reap endless rewards for doing this as often as possible.

Now, the last thing to remember here is that on the off chance that you suddenly do have a very strong craving for those biscuits or for some ice cream, or whatever it is - have it! Don't restrict yourself, and worse, don't beat yourself up about it. You can still continue after that, it's not the end of the road for you. Why do you have to be so perfect when it comes to your diet? You 'slip up' once and you're ready to give up? It's normal. So keep going.  

By finding the worst parts of your diet and starting to make little adjustments and changing them for healthier alternatives, soon this will become your everyday routine, and you may end up eating clean sooner than you think!

Bit by bit you’ll find yourself slowly getting used to these changes - and enjoying them - and begin to wonder what more you can do! And, I cannot wait to be a part of it.

*Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or psychologist (yet), this is simply based on personal experiences and advice to my fellow readers out there!*

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